tl 


THE     ^ 
luioTIANMAN 
r HE  CHURCH 
ID  THE  WAR 


I>«9 
R4.S7 


OCT  21  1918 


Division    1)63^ 
Section     .RH~S7 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2010  with  funding  from 

Princeton  Theological  Seminary  Library 


http://www.archive.org/details/christianmanchurOOspee 


THE  CHRISTIAN  MAN,  THE 
CHURCH  AND  THE  WAR 


THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

NEW  YORK  .    BOSTON   •    CHICAGO  •    DALLAS 
ATLANTA   •    SAN   FRANCISCO 

MACMILLAN  &  CO.,  Limited 

LONDON  •  BOMBAY  •  CALCUTTA 
MELBOURNE 

THE  MACMILLAN  CO.  OF  CANADA,  Ltd. 

TORONTO 


THE  CHRISTIAN  MAN,  THE 
CHURCH  AND  THE  WAR 


OCT  21  1918 


^'%!0M%^^ 


BY 


ROBERT  E,  SPEER 


THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 
1918 


All  rights  reserved 


COPYEiaHT,    1918 
By  the   MACMILL.AN  COMPANY 


Set  up  and  electrotyped.     Published,   May,    1918 


There  are  three  different  courses  open  to 
the  Christian  man  to-day.  One  is  to  throw 
his  Christian  idealism  overboard,  and  post- 
pone his  effort  to  adjust  rehgion  to  life  until 
the  war  is  over.  A  second  is  to  hold  fast  to 
his  Christian  idealism  and  to  repudiate  the 
real  world  he  is  living  in.  The  third  is  to 
take  Paul's  counsel  and  seek  to  behave  as  a 
citizen  In  a  manner  worthy  of  the  Gospel,  be- 
lieving that  his  present  duty  is  to  be  a  Chris- 
tian not  in  some  other  world  but  in  this  one, 
and  that  this  duty  can  be  done  in  the  highest 
loyalty  both  to  humanity  and  to  Christ. 
This  little  book  is  an  attempt  at  a  statement 
of  this  third  course.  If  the  attempt  is  not  a 
success,  neither  is  life. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  •  PAGE 

I    The  Christian  Man  and  the  War  .       7 

II    The  Church  and  the  War    ...     32 

III     The  World  Problem  and  Christian- 
ity     63 


THE  CHRISTIAN  MAN,  THE 
CHURCH  AND  THE  WAR 

I 

THE    CHRISTIAN    MAN   AND   THE    WAR 

As  a  Christian  man,  holding  the  Christian 
faith  and  trying  to  live  the  Christian  life,  I 
believe  that  the  war  in  which  the  nation  is 
now  engaged  is  a  just  and  necessary  war.  Is 
this  a  consistent  position?  Can  this  belief  be 
reconciled  with  the  Christian  faith  and  with 
the  ideals  of  the  Christian  life?  Is  not 
war  so  fundamentally  un-Christian  that  it  can 
never  be  right?  These  were  living  questions 
to  many  men  before  the  United  States  entered 
the  war.  Some  men  answered  them  unhesi- 
tatingly, yes  or  no.  Others  felt  unable  to  do 
so,  and  so  long  as  the  obligations  of  citizen- 
ship allowed,  evaded  an  answer,  not  knowing 
how  they  could  reconcile  the  contradictions 
which  seemed  to  them  involved  in  the  issues 
between  Christianity  and  war.  When  at  last 
the  United  States  was  drawn  into  the  struggle 
7 


8  The  Christian  Man, 

this  evasion  was  no  longer  possible.  Those 
men  also  to  whom  the  case  against  all  war 
seemed  to  be  clear  were  obliged  to  recon- 
sider their  position  in  the  light  of  the  fact 
that  the  nation  to  which  they  belonged  was 
actually  at  war.  If  these  two  groups  of  men 
were  not  prepared  to  take  on  principle  and 
to  hold  at  any  cost  the  ultra-pacifist  position, 
two  other  positions  were  open  to  them.  One 
was  to  accept  the  war  as  a  fact  and  to  adapt 
themselves  to  it,  leaving  the  responsibility 
for  it  upon  others,  but  loyally  contributing 
their  full  duty.  The  other  was  to  review  the 
whole  case,  to  reface  the  moral  issues  and  to 
discern.  If  they  could,  a  righteous  basis  for 
the  war  and  for  America's  participation  in  it. 
To  avoid  misunderstanding,  I  venture  to 
say  that  I  have  never  accepted  the  position 
that  In  our  present  stage  of  social  and  polit- 
ical development  all  war  is  in  principle 
wrong.  The  problem  as  It  presented  itself 
to  me  was  not  whether  Belgium  and  France 
and  Great  Britain  were  wrong  In  resisting 
Germany, —  they  seemed  to  me  to  be  in  duty 
bound  to  do  so, —  but  whether  and  when  It 
became  our  duty  also  to  resist  Germany  by 
war.  At  the  same  time  I  appreciated  the  po- 
sition and  the  principles  of  earnest  men  and 
women  who  took  a  different  view  and  to 
whom   our   entrance   Into   the   war  brought 


the  Church  and  the  War  9 

problems  of  the  greatest  pain  and  difficulty 
as  to  the  most  fundamental  issues  of  Christi- 
anity and  international  morality.  And  I 
honor  the  struggle  which  many  of  these  men 
and  women  ha^'e  gone  through  and  are  going 
through  now  in  an  effort  to  be  loyal  Amer- 
icans and  at  the  same  time  to  preserve  their 
own  moral  integrity. 

It  may  be  thought  that  all  these  matters 
have  reached  a  settled  adjustment  now  and 
that  it  is  needless  to  revive  the  questions 
which  were  active  at  the  beginning  of  the  war 
and  which,  if  they  may  be  stirring  still  in 
some  minds,  are  checked  and  controlled  there 
by  the  sense  of  political  loyalty.  This  is  a 
dangerous  view,  however.  The  fact  is  that 
these  questions  are  as  much  alive  as  ever,  that 
in  the  camps  thousands  of  young  men  are 
arguing  them,  and  that  at  the  front  they  are 
arguing  them  still  more.  There  the  base 
brutalism  of  war  is  ceaselessly,  sickeningly 
present,  and  all  that  is  highest  and  best  in  a 
man's  soul  protests  against  its  irrationality. 
There  the  horrors  and  atrocities  are  closest 
to  men  and  while  these  nerve  men  to  stern 
purpose,  they  also  show  them  how  abhorrent 
war  Is  to  humanity.  There  men  are  face  to 
face  with  the  duty  of  killing.  The  duty  of 
dying  does  not  daunt  them,  but  the  duty  of 
putting  other  men,  other  boys,  to  death  does. 


lO  The  Christian  Man, 

The  whole  fundamental  question  as  to 
whether  war  can  ever  be  right  rises  up  with 
a    pathos    and    Insistency    unknown    before. 

" has    just    returned    from    France/' 

writes  a  correspondent.  "  He  has  become  a 
rabid  pacifist.  Rabid  Is  not  the  word,  enthu- 
siastic is  better.  He  says  that  war  is  abso- 
lutely un-Chrlstlan,  that  no  Christian  has  a 
right  to  have  anything  to  do  with  war,  either 
this  war  or  any  other,  that  those  who  believe 
they  serve  God  by  fighting  may  have  clear 
consciences,  but  they  are  mistaking  God's 
message."  As  we  go  deeper  into  the  war, 
these  questionings  will  not  abate.  They  will 
increase.  And  the  reflex  Influence  will  be 
felt  at  home.  Brigadier  General  John  A. 
Johnston  has  Issued  a  timely  warning  that  we 
must  prepare  for  this.  (New  York  Times ^ 
Feb.  27,  1918.)  It  Is  folly  to  be  deaf  to 
such  a  warning,  to  think  that  these  questions 
can  be  met  by  coercion  of  any  kind  or  by  mob 
authority.  They  must  be  met  squarely  and 
we  must  convince  ourselves  and  others  clearly 
of  the  moral  obligation  of  carrying  the  strug- 
gle through  until  the  International  wrong- 
doing which  brought  on  this  war  and  which 
has  characterized  it  and  against  which  we  are 
fighting.  Is  put  down  once  for  all  and  forever. 
It  does  not  matter  how  long  this  may  take  nor 
how  much  It  may  cost,  it  must  be  done.     And 


the  Church  and  the  War  ii 

if  war  is  the  only  way  in  which  it  can  be  done, 
if  Germany  will  accept  no  other  decision,  then 
by  war  it  must  be  done,  and  the  mind  and 
heart  of  the  nation  must  be  intelligently  and 
resolutely  girded  to  the  task. 

The  fundamental  question  which  was  alive 
before   the  war   and  which   is   alive   to-day 
again  and  which  will  be  alive  when  the  war  is  / 
over  is:     Can  war  ever  be  right,  or  is  war  In  j 
moral  principle  always  wrong?     That  ques-ry 
tlon  will  be  alive  until  at  last  a  day  comes  \ 
when  the  whole  world  will  answer  against  ] 
war.     When  that  day  comes  men  will  look 
back  upon  what  we  say  about  war  now  as  we 
look  back  upon  what  men  used  to  say  about 
slavery.     This  book  that  I  am  writing,  if  a 
copy  should  remain  until  that  future  day  of 
peace,  will  seem  a  sad  and  pitiful  thing  to  any 
one  of  Its  happy  citizens  who  may  chance 
upon  it.     But  this  day  is  not  that  day.     We 
are  living  In  a  world  In  which  one  great  na- 
tion   has    deliberately    repudiated   the    Ideal 
of  peace,  built  up  enormous  armaments  de- 
signed for  aggression,  Invaded  other  nations, 
with  one,  at  least,  of  whom  It  had  not  only  no 
quarrel  but  solemn  engagements  of  neutral- 
ity.    Our  nation  has  been  beset  on  every  side 
by  a  whole  world  at  war.     In  this  world  we 
have  had  to  decide  our  present  duty. 

Well,  the  Christian  man  who  wants  even 


12  The  Christian  Man, 

in  such  a  world  to  see  truth  as  calmly  and 
dispassionately  as  possible,  will  do  well  to 
set  aside  for  a  moment  all  but  the  bare  gen- 
eral question  which  he  must  answer:  Can 
k  any  war  be  right? 

The  militarist  answer,  that  war  is  a  good 
thing  in  itself,  can  be  rejected  quietly.  It 
belongs  to  a  bygone  day.  If  it  were  a  living 
contention  it  should  be  assassinated  and  it 
would  be.  In  so  far  as  It  is  living  we  are 
fighting  to  kill  it.  This  is  the  view  which 
Dr.  von  Luschau,  Professor  of  Anthropology 
in  the  University  of  Berlin,  set  forth  In  his 
paper  on  "  The  Anthropological  View  of 
Race  "  at  the  Universal  Races  Congress  in 
London  In  191 1:  "Racial  barriers  will 
never  cease  to  exist,  and  if  ever  they  should 
show  a  tendency  to  disappear,  it  will  certainly 
be  better  to  preserve  than  to  obliterate  them. 
The  brotherhood  of  man  Is  a  good  thing,  but 
the  struggle  for  life  is  a  far  better  one. 
Athens  would  never  have  become  what  it  was 
without  Sparta,  and  national  jealousies  and 
differences,  and  even  the  most  cruel  wars, 
have  ever  been  the  real  causes  of  progress 
and  mental  freedom.  .  .  .  No  Hague  Con- 
ferences, no  International  tribunals,  no  inter- 
national papers  and  peace  societies,  no  Espe- 
ranto or  other  international  languages,  will 
ever  be  able  to  abolish  war.  .  .  .  Natural 


the  Church  and  the  JVar  13 

law  will  never  allow  national  boundaries  to 
fall.  .  .  .  Nations  will  come  and  go,  but 
racial  and  national  antagonism  will  remain, 
and  this  is  well,  for  mankind  would  become 
like  a  herd  of  sheep  if  we  were  to  lose  our 
national  ambition  and  cease  to  look  with 
pride  and  delight,  not  only  on  our  industries 
and  science,  but  also  on  our  splendid  soldiers 
and  glorious  ironclads."  (Report,  Univer- 
sal Races  Congress,  London,  191 1,  p.  23.) 
This  view  is  uncivilized,  barbarous  and  false. 
War  for  national  aggrandizement,  for  the 
enlargement  of  territory,  or  for  the  expan- 
sion of  trade  is  wrong.  Such  war  has  not 
been  without  its  advocates.  "  In  every  part 
of  the  world  where  British  interests  are  at 
stake,"  said  Edward  Dicey,  in  an  article  en- 
titled "  Peace  and  War  in  South  Africa  "  in 
The  Nineteenth  Century,  September,  1899, 
*'  I  am  in  favor  of  advancing  and  upholding 
these  interests  even  at  the  cost  of  annexation 
and  at  the  risk  of  war.  The  only  qualifica- 
tion I  admit  is  that  the  country  we  desire  to 
annex  or  take  under  our  protection,  the  claims 
we  choose  to  assert  and  the  cause  we  decide 
to  espouse,  should  be  calculated  to  confer  a 
tangible  advantage  upon  the  British  Empire." 
And  the  same  view  has  been  expressed  among 
ourselves  in  articles  in  the  magazine  called 
Seven  Seas  {Seven  Seas,  Sept.,  19 15,  pp.  11, 


14  The  Christian  Man, 

13;  Nov.,  I9i5,p.  28.)  "World  empire," 
says  the  writer,  ''  is  the  only  logical  and 
rational  aim  of  a  nation.  .  .  .  The  true 
militarist  believes  that  pacifism  is  the  mascu- 
line and  humanitarianism  is  the  feminine 
manifestation  of  national  degeneracy.  .  .  . 
It  is  the  absolute  right  of  a  nation  to  live  to 
its  fullest  intensity,  to  expand,  to  found 
colonies,  to  get  richer  and  richer  by  any 
proper  means,  such  as  armed  conquest,  com- 
merce and  diplomacy."  We  are  fighting  a 
great  war  to  destroy  this  view. 

War  for  national  glory  or  national  pride 
Is  wrong.  The  idea  belongs  to  the  same 
level  of  morals  and  jurisprudence  as  dueling. 
A  nation  cannot  clear  its  honor  or  increase  its 
true  glory  by  war.  If  it  has  done  right  it  has 
no  dishonor  to  clear.  If  it  has  done  wrong 
war  cannot  conceal  it  or  atone  for  it.  And 
it  is  a  doubtful  question  both  to  the  Christian 
conscience  and  to  the  political  judgment  as  to 
whether  it  is  right  in  itself  or  helpful  to  hu- 
man progress  for  a  nation  to  fight  for  its  own 
material  rights  alone.  We  may  venture 
to  grant  to  the  opponent  of  all  war  his 
claim  that  such  wars  also  are  wrong.  If  the 
rights  are  not  mere  isolated  rights,  but  the 
rights  of  humanity,  and  if  the  attack  to  be 
resisted  is  made  upon  innocent  persons  and 
upon  human  solidarity  we  will  take  back  the 


the  Church  and  the  War  15 

concession.     But  we  are  anxious  to  concede 
as  much  as  may  be  possible. 

And  with  all  that  the  hater  of  war  may  be 
able  to  say  against  the  horror  and  shame  and 
hellishness  of  war  we  will  agree,  asking  only 
words  with  which  to  help  him  in  his  denuncia- 
tion. It  is  an  evil  deeper  and  darker  than 
speech.  "  I  do  not  merely  want  to  end  this 
war.  I  want  to  nail  down  war  in  its  coffin. 
Modern  war  is  an  intolerable  thing.  ...  It 
is  disaster.  It  may  be  a  necessary  disaster 
.  .  .  but  for  all  that  I  insist  it  remains  waste, 
disorder,  disaster."  (H.  G.  Wells,  "Italy, 
France  and  Britain  at  War.") 

"  Well,   then,"    says   the   conscience   stern 
against  war,  "  if  you  hold  all  this  and  are 
ready  to  go  even  further,  what  kind  of  war  I 
can  be  right?"     And  we  reply,  such  a  war) 
as  the  American  nation  believes  it  is  waging/ 
now,  a  war  in  defense  of  human  rights,  ofi^ 
weak  nations,  of  innocent  and  inoffensive  peo- 
ples,  an  unselfish  war_in  which  the  nation 
seeks    absoliIfeTy"  nothing  for   itself   and    is 
willing  to  spend  everything- in  order  that  all 
men,    including   Its    enemies_^_may   be^free. 
This  Is  a  kind  of  w^ar  which  we  believe  to  be 
justified  and  right  in  principle  In  a  world  In 
which,  at  this  time,  these  ends  can  only  be 
defended  In  this  way.     War  is  an  evil  and  Is 
not  to  be  tolerated  unless  the  only  alternative 


1 6  The  Christian  Man 


offered  Is  a  worse  evil.  And  to  let  the  wrong 
have  free  course,  to  let  might  triumph  over 
justice  is  a  worse  evil  than  resistance. 

But  this  Is  the  very  Issue  with  many  consci- 
entious Christian  men  and  women  who  see  all 
this  as  clearly  as  any  one  can,  but  who,  when 
they  put  their  difficulty  into  words,  say  these 
five  things : 

I.  "It  Is  wrong  to  kill.  Doing  It  on  a 
big  scale,  in  the  name  of  the  nation  and  under 
the  form  of  war,  does  not  alter  the  fact  that 
it  is  killing.  War  Is  the  killing  of  others 
and  it  is  wholesale  self-killing  too.  And 
killing  Is  wrong.  The  sixth  commandment 
merely  expresses  a  fundamental  moral  in- 
stinct of  humanity."  To  this  what  answer 
can  be  made?  Several  answers.  First,  it  is 
murder,  not  death,  that  Is  forbidden  by  the 
sixth  commandment  and  the  moral  sense  of 
mankind.  The  same  law  which  forbade  mur- 
der proclaimed  death  as  the  penalty  for  mur- 
der. And  the  moral  sense  of  mankind  has 
always  justified  killing  as  a  prevention  of 
murder.  Second,  life  is  a  sacred  thing,  but 
there  are  times  when  some  lives  must  be  sac- 
rificed that  others  may  be  saved.  If  the 
Turks  are  massacreing  Armenians,  the  law  of 
the  sacredness  of  human  life  requires,  not 
that  the  assassins  shall  be  allowed  to  go  on 
with  impunity,  but  that  they  shall  be  stopped 


the  Church  and  the  War  17 

even  at  the  cost  of  their  own  lives.  That  is 
the  way  an  outraged  law  works.  Third,  war 
is  killing,  but  a  war  against  war  is  a  war 
against  killing.  It  is  a  dreadful  remedy, 
but  if  it  is  the  only  remedy,  the  greater  wrong 
is  in  flinching  from  its  use.  And,  fourth,  the 
abstract  principle  of  the  inviolability  of  hu- 
man life  cannot  be  maintained.  If  it  is,  how 
can  God  be  justified  in  allowing  death  or  in 
inflicting  it?  Fifth,  there  is  no  law  against 
self-sacrifice.  Regarding  His  own  life,  our 
Lord  declared:  "I  have  a  right  to  lay  it 
down  of  myself."  And  of  His  disciples'  lives 
He  said:  "  Greater  love  hath  no  man  than 
this,  that  a  man  lay  down  his  life  for  his 
friends."  Would  that  not  justify  a  man  to- 
day in  laying  down  his  life  for  Belgium  or 
for  France?  And  last,  life  is  not  the  great- 
est thing  in  the  world  nor  death  the  most 
dreadful.  "  What  is  a  man  worse  for  dy- 
ing? "  asked  Scatcherd  in  Trollope's  "  Dr. 
Thorne,"  "  What  can  I  be  worse  for  dying? 
A  man  can  die  but  once."  Many  things  are 
better  than  life.  Duty  and  righteousness  and 
truth  are  all  worth  more  than  life.  Happy 
are  they  who  are  counted  "  worthy  to  die  for 
a  great  cause,"  said  John  Brown,  "  and 
not  merely  to  pay  the  debt  of  nature  as  til 
must." 

It  is  wrong  to  murder;  as  wrong  as  it  is 


1 8  The  Christian  Man, 

right  to  stop  those  who  are  doing  it,  even  at 
the  risk  of  losing  their  lives  and  our  own. 

2.  "  It  is  wrong  to  use  physical  force  in 
resisting  evil."  Why  physical?  What  is 
the  valid  moral  distinction  between  physical 
force  and  other  kinds  of  influence  ?  It  is  cer- 
tainly right  to  use  intellectual  and  moral  and 
spiritual  force  to  prevent  evil.  What  is  the 
moral  difference  in  using  physical  force? 
And  if  it  is  wrong  to  use  physical  force  in 
resisting  evil,  why  is  it  not  wrong  also  in 
doing  good?  Does  any  one  think  of  main- 
taining such  a  proposition?  And  further- 
more, what  it  is  morally  right  for  God  to  do, 
is  It  not  morally  right  for  man  to  do  In  God's 
name  in  the  way  of  duty?  God  is  using 
physical  force  every  day  both  to  achieve  good 
and  to  prevent  evil.  Man  may  safely  act 
In  accord  with  God  in  this.  "  But  all  use 
of  violence  or  of  physical  restraint  is  an  inva- 
sion of  the  personality."  But  which  Is  the 
worse  invasion,  a  robber's,  entering  my  neigh- 
bor's house  to  steal  his  goods  and  kill  his 
little  children,  or  mine,  meeting  the  robber 
at  the  door  and  binding  him  hand  and  foot? 
Whose  "  personality  "  has  the  greater  right 
to  protection,  his  or  my  neighbor's?  Even 
so  clear  and  earnest  a  pacifist  as  Mr.  Ber- 
trand  Russell  sees  that  "  the  use  of  force  Is 
justifiable  when  it  Is  ordered  in  accordance 
with  law,  by  a  neutral  authority  In  the  gtn- 


the  Church  and  the  War  19 

eral  Interest."  (Quoted  in  The  New  Repub- 
lic, April  21,  1917,  p.  353.) 

The  moral  end  for  which  physical  force 
exists  is  Its  use  in  righteous  and  loving  serv- 
ice. The  vital  thing  is  the  use  to  which  it  is 
put  and  the  end  It  serves,  not  the  resistance  it 
meets.  If  I  am  going  down  the  street  and 
see  a  window  coping  about  to  fall  on  the  head 
of  a  child,  it  is  my  right  and  duty  to  hold  it 
back  whether  it  is  about  to  fall  naturally  or  is 
pushed  down  by  a  violent  man.  The  moral 
problem  lies  in  having  power  to  prevent 
wrong  and  not  using  it. 

3.  "  War  is  contrary  to  the  teaching  and 
spirit  of  Jesus.  '  Put  up  thy  sword  Into  its 
place,'  He  said  to  the  man  defending  Him 
from  arrest,  who  used  force  in  the  protection 
of  the  innocent,  '  for  all  they  that  take  the 
sword  shall  perish  by  the  sword.'  Jesus 
taught  the  duty  of  absolute  non-resistance  to 
evil."  Yes,  war  is  contrary  to  the  teaching 
and  spirit  of  Jesus.  The  nation  that  Initiates, 
a  war  Is  violating  His  law  and  His  mind. 
But  when  it  has  done  so,  and  war,  violating 
His  principles  and  disregarding  and  dishon- 
oring His  love,  has  been  let  loose,  then  does; 
it  follow  that  His  teaching  and  spirit  requlrej 
that  free  and  unhindered  course  must  be 
given  to  It?  Ask  John  what  might  happen 
then.     He  knew  the  spirit  of  Jesus  and  he 


20  The  Christian  Man, 

declared  that  he  was  in  that  spirit  when  he 
wrote  what  he  saw: 

"  And  I  saw  the  heaven  opened ;  and  behold,  a 
white  horse,  and  He  that  sat  thereon,  called  Faithful 
and  True;  and  in  righteousness  He  doth  judge  and 
make  war.  And  His  eyes  are  a  flame  of  fire,  and 
upon  His  head  are  many  diadems;  and  He  hath  a 
name  written,  which  no  one  knoweth  but  He  Him- 
self. And  He  is  arrayed  in  a  garment  sprinkled 
with  blood:  and  His  name  is  called  The  Word  of 
God.  And  the  armies  which  are  in  heaven  followed 
Him  upon  white  horses,  clothed  in  fine  linen,  white 
and  pure.  And  out  of  His  mouth  proceedeth  a 
sharp  sword,  that  with  it  He  should  smite  the  na- 
tions: and  He  shall  rule  them  with  a  rod  of  iron: 
and  He  treadeth  the  winepress  of  the  fierceness  of 
the  wrath  of  Almighty  God.  And  He  hath  on  His 
garment  and  on  His  thigh  a  name  written.  King  of 
Kings,  and  Lord  of  Lords.'      (Rev.  xix,  11-16.) 

And  lest  it  should  be  thought  that  these  vast 
visions  are  too  poetical,  remember  Jesus'  own 
words  regarding  wrongs  against  the  innocent 
and  the  just  feelings  and  actions  of  human 
governments : 

**  And  whoso  shall  receive  one  such  little  child  In 
My  name  receiveth  Me:  but  whoso  shall  cause  one 
of  these  little  ones  which  believe  on  Me  to  stumble, 
it  is  profitable  for  him  that  a  great  millstone  should 
be  hanged  about  his  neck,  and  that  he  should  be 
sunk  in  the  depth  of  the  sea."     (Matt,  xviii,  5,  6.) 


the  Church  and  the  War  21 

"  Jesus  answered,  My  kingdom  is  not  of  this 
world:  if  My  kingdom  were  of  this  world,  then 
would  My  servants  fight,  that  I  should  not  be  deliv- 
ered to  the  Jews."      (John  xviii,  36.) 

We  err  if  we  think  of  Jesus  and  His  Spirit 
In  terms  of  compassion  alone.  We  must 
think  of  Him  also  In  terms  of  righteousness. 
He  was  love  and  He  was  also  justice  and 
truth.  He  did  Indeed  surrender  His  life 
without  resistance  to  His  enemies,  but  He 
also  again  and  again  pronounced  judgment 
both  on  sin  as  such  and  on  men  as  sinners,  as 
His  disciples  did  In  His  name  (Acts  v,  i-i  i ) . 
He  taught  the  duty  of  pity  and  unselfishness 
and  forgiveness,  but  He  never  abrogated  or 
compromised  the  principles  of  righteousness. 
Neither  in  His  example  nor  In  His  teaching 
is  there  any  warrant  for  the  surrender  by 
society  of  the  political  order  of  human  life  to 
the  power  of  evil  and  wrong-doing.  Men 
may  and  often  must  do  just  as  Jesus  did.  In 
the  will  of  God,  but  society  may  not  dissolve 
nor  Ignore  God's  just  and  righteous  govern- 
ment. 

4.  "  War  Is  an  evil.  It  does  not  matter 
how  It  Is  justified  or  what  It  Is  fought  for.  It 
Is  always  and  only  evil.  It  means  economic 
loss  and  waste.  It  eats  up  the  accumulated 
toll  of  the  past.     It  consumes  the  resources 


22  The  Christian  Man, 

of  the  people.  It  destroys  its  treasures.  It 
breeds  moral  disease.  It  poisons  the  blood 
of  the  nation.  It  accomplishes  nothing. 
When  it  is  over  there  is  ruin  and  there  is 
nothing  else."  Yes,  this  is  a  mild  statement. 
It  can  be  qualified  perhaps  in  some  particu- 
lars. But  it  can  also  be  enlarged  a  hundred- 
fold and  its  color  turned  from  gray  into  scar- 
let and  lurid  night.  War  is  an  evil,  but  I 
say  again  there  can  be  a  worse  evil.  It  is  a 
worse  evil  to  surrender  to  war,  to  let  a  war- 
purposing  nation  have  its  own  unhindered 
way,  to  allow  the  principle  of  injustice  to 
triumph.  It  is  better  to  die  fighting  against 
Dr.  von  Luschau's  theory  of  a  world  order 
than  to  live  accepting  it.  The  one  war  that 
can  be  right  and  not  all  evil  is  the  war  that 
will  end  war  forever.  That  war  is  morally 
just.     It  is  worth  any  sacrifice. 

5.  *'  Yes,  but  the  only  way  to  stop  war  is 
to  stop  it.  You  can't  stop  it  by  carrying  it 
on.  You  can  only  stop  it  when  some  nation 
at  any  cost  refuses  to  resist  its  enemy,  or 
when  some  nation  disarms  and  renounces  war 
for  itself  forever."  Some  day  this  may 
come  true.  The  nations  will  "  beat  their 
swords  into  plowshares,  and  their  spears 
into  pruning  hooks;  nation  shall  not  lift 
up  sword  against  nation,  neither  shall 
they  learn  war  any  more."     But  until  that 


the  Church  and  the  War  23 

day  comes  the  practical  question  which  one 
nation  after  another  has  had  to  answer  and, 
until  we  get  war  killed,  will  have  to  continue 
to  answer,  will  be  the  question  of  its  duty, 
resting  in  its  own  safety  and  peace,  to  other 
weaker  nations  in  peril  and  distress.  And 
the  weaker  nation  may  really  be  fighting  the 
battle  of  the  great  nation  which  is  at  safety 
and  peace,  standing  between  it  and  its  enemy. 
It  is  not  heroic,  it  is  less  than  honorable  for 
a  nation  to  throw  on  such  beleaguered  nations 
the  burden  of  making  a  world-peace  by  the 
surrender  of  all  that  they  are  and  have,  to 
advise  them  to  yield  to  the  aggressor  in  the 
assurance  that  if  they  will  do  so  war  will  end. 
For  three  years  in  this  world  war  the  United 
States  refused  to  arm.  It  strove  by  every 
means  to  maintain  peace.  It  scrupulously 
observed  all  the  requirements  of  neutrality 
and  of  international  law.  Was  it  secured 
thereby  against  assault  upon  its  citizens  and 
upon  its  peaceful  relations  with  other  peo- 
ples? In  a  world  that  will  some  day  come 
this  will  be  different.  It  may  be  that  sorne 
Telemachus  nation  may  stop  the  last  war,  if 
this  war  is  not  the  last,  by  sacrificing  itself  as 
the  monk  did  when  he  ended  the  gladia- 
torial shows  in  Rome.  But  we  have  as  yet  no 
nation  sufficiently  holy  for  such  a  sacrifice  and 
neither    hitherto    nor    now    has    submission 


24  The  Christian  Man, 

shamed  aggressive  nations  Into  peace.  Ana 
while  men  Innocently  suffer  the  old  question 
will  recur:  "  Shall  your  brethren  go  to  the 
war  and  you  sit  here?  "  And  the  notes  of 
the  ancient  song  return: 

''  And  the  princes  of  Issachar  were  with  Deborah; 

As  was  Issachar,  so  was  Barak ; 

Into  the  valley  thy  rushed  forth  at  his  feet. 

By  the  watercourses  of  Reuben 

There  were  great  resolves  of  heart. 

Why  sattest  thou  among  the  sheepfolds, 

To  hear  the  pipings  for  the  flocks? 

At  the  watercourses  of  Reuben 

There  were  great  searchings  of  heart. 

Gilead  abode  beyond  the  Jordan : 

And  Dan,  why  did  he  remain  in  ships? 

Asher  sat  still  at  the  haven  of  the  sea 

And  abode  by  his  creeks. 

Zebulun  was  a  people  that  jeoparded  their  lives  unto 

the  death. 
And  Naphtali,  upon  the  high  places  of  the  field. 
Curse  ye  Meroz,  said  the  angel  of  Jehovah, 
Curse  ye  bitterly  the  inhabitants  thereof, 
Because  they  came  not  to  the  help  of  Jehovah, 
To  the  help  of  Jehovah  against  the  mighty." 

(Judges  V,  15-18,  23.) 

One  wants  to  deal  fairly  by  the  Christian 
man  who  feels  these  five  diflUcultles.  They 
are  valid  objections  to  a  war  of  aggression. 
I  do  not  see  that  they  are  valid  against  an 
unselfish  war  In  defense  of  human  rights. 


the  Church  and  the  War  25 

But  we  can  go  further  in  our  thought  on 
the  question,  whether  in  principle  war  can 
ever  be  right  in  our  actual  world. 

The  past  is  a  record  of  how  God  actually 
has  shaped  human  history.  Can  any  one 
deny  that  there  have  been  wars  which  on  one 
side  at  least  were  right?  If  there  is  any 
truth  at  all  in  the  Old  Testament  records  it 
is  clear  from  them  that  again  and  again  men 
were  convinced  that  they  were  fighting  with 
the  very  help  and  warrant  of  God.  In  our 
own  national  history,  who  is  prepared  to  say 
that  both  the  Revolutionary  and  the  Civil 
Wars  represented  no  right  principle  for 
which  the  nation  was  justified  in  contending 
even  to  the  death?  The  New  Testament 
itself  recognized  the  legitimacy  of  military 
service  for  Christian  men  as  it  certainly  could 
not  have  done  without  sacrifice  of  its  moral 
authority  if  it  be  true  that  war  cannot  be 
morally  allowed  in  human  life.  And  in  all 
later  days  many  of  the  noblest  and  purest 
Christian  spirits  have  been  soldiers. 

This  fact  that  God  has  allowed  wars  in 
human  history  and  that  Christian  men  have 
been  soldiers  does  not  prove  that  war  is  a 
good  thing  and  that  it  is  to  be  accepted  as  a 
lasting  human  institution,  a  part  of  the  divine 
order  of  the  world,  any  more  than  the  exist- 
ence of  polygamy  in  the  Old  Testament  times 


26  The  Christian  Man, 

and  of  slavery  In  New  Testament  times  and 
for  centuries  afterwards  proves  that  polyg- 
amy and  slavery  are  good  things  and  divinely 
ordered  permanent  institutions.  There  is 
such  a  thing  as  world  progress.  What  was 
allowable  and  even  necessary  in  one  day  be- 
comes wrong  and  intolerable  in  another. 
The  day  will  come  when  war  will  be  an  ana- 
chronism, a  long  abandoned  evil  of  the  bar- 
baric times.  We  are  waging  the  present  war 
to  accomplish  this  very  result.  But  until  that 
day,  so  long  as  human  law  and  human  life 
know  only  the  principles  of  our  present  order, 
war  cannot  be  said  to  be  in  principle  unallow- 
able. God  has  allowed  it.  We  did  our  best 
to  escape  it,  but  it  came  unsought  and  un- 
avoidable. The  facts  of  history  justify  it 
to-day.  May  it  be  for  the  last  time !  To- 
morrow, please  God,  it  will  be  outlawed  for- 
ever. 

Not  only  does  the  past  refuse  to  justify  the 
view  that  Christianity  and  war  are  irrecon- 
ciliable  as  yet,  although  God  intends  and  we 
Intend,  by  His  help,  that  they  shall  be,  but 
the  fundamental  Christian  principles  of  trus- 
teeship and  unselfishness  require  resistance  to 
wrong  directed  against  the  weak  and  the  Inno- 
cent. The  wrong  of  war  for  selfish  ends  is 
as  clear  as  sunlight,  but  In  Jesus'  words,  "  Re- 
sist not  evil,"  there  is  no  warrant  for  a  man. 


the  Church  and  the  War  27 

as  Captain  Mahan  says,  "  to  surrender  the 
rights  of  another,  still  less  if  he  is  the  trustee 
of  those  rights.  This  applies  with  double 
emphasis  to  rulers  and  to  nations;  for  these, 
in  this  matter,  have  no  personal  rights. 
They  are  guardians,  trustees,  and  as  such  are 
bound  to  do  their  best,  even  to  the  use  of 
force,  if  need  be,  for  the  rightful  interest  of 
their  wards.  Personally,  I  go  farther,  and 
maintain  that  the  possession  of  power  is  a  tal- 
ent committed  in  trust,  for  which  account  will 
be  exacted;  and  that,  under  some  circum- 
stances, an  obligation  to  repress  evil  external 
to  its  borders  rests  upon  a  nation  as  responsi- 
bility for  the  slums  rests  upon  the  rich  quar- 
ters of  a  city.  In  this  respect  I  call  to  wit- 
ness Armenia,  Crete,  and  Cuba,  without, 
however,  presuming  to  judge  the  consciences 
of  the  nations  who  witnessed  without  inter- 
vention the  sufferings  of  the  first  two." 

It  is  in  this  principle  that  we  get  light  upon 
the  teaching  of  Jesus  about  non-resistance. 
He  clearly  bade  us  to  yield  our  own  rights, 
but  he  did  not  bid  us  to  yield  our  duties.  If 
one  smites  us  on  our  own  cheek  we  are  to 
turn  to  him  the  other,  but  if  he  smites  a  little 
child  on  one  cheek  he  will  not  smite  it  on  the 
other  if  we  have  the  strength  and  love  of 
Christ  in  us.^  Set  in  the  duty  of  service  we 
are  to  stand  immovable,  faithful  unto  death, 


28  The  Christian  Man, 

shielding  the  helpless,  protecting  the  weak, 
overthrowing  the  evil. 

Another  New  Testament  conception  which 
makes  it  impossible  for  us  as  yet  to  set  up 
the  thesis  of  the  absolute  indefensibility  of 
war  is  the  conception  of  the  state  as  an  ordi- 
nance of  God.  Paul  held  this  conception 
firmly  (  Romans  xiii,  3-7 )  and  he  did  not  hesi- 
tate to  appeal  to  the  state  for  military  pro- 
tection against  violence  and  crime  (Acts  xxiii, 
17-23).  The  Christian  Church  in  the  first 
century  was  not  called,  and  never  as  a  Church 
has  been  called,  to  go  to  war;  but  nations  and 
ordered  governments,  whether  then  or  now, 
are  to  do  justice  and  to  prevent  wrong.  Paul 
said  this  was  the  divine  purpose  of  govern- 
ment in  the  case  of  Rome  (Romans  xiii,  4). 
It  is  not  possible  that  God  should  intend  a 
heathen  government  to  prevent  evil,  but 
Christian  governments  to  permit  it. 

And  we  cannot  absolutely  rule  out  war 
from  the  universe  on  the  ground  that  it  em- 
ploys force  and  costs  human  life  if  at  the 
same  time  we  believe  in  God.  If  the  uni- 
verse is  not  moral,  then,  of  course,  no  ethical 
question  will  trouble  us.  But  if  it  is  moral, 
if  a  personal  God  is  back  of  it,  must  not  the 
use  of  force  and  of  human  life  in  the  progress 
of  the  world  be  warrantable  if  He  uses  them 
so?     Can  H/C  not  allow  and  authorize  this 


the  Church  and  the  War  29 

war?  When  he  has  educated  us  a  little  more 
we  may  be  sure  He  will  rule  war  out.  The 
God  in  Whom  we  believe  would  have  de- 
stroyed it  long  ago  if  He  could  have  done  so 
without  destroying  man  too.  But  until  man- 
kind comes  to  the  stage  where  war  can  be 
abandoned  without  abandoning  the  world  to 
the  armed  wrong-doer,  we  cannot  say  that 
the  use  of  war  for  righteous  defense  is  wrong. 
Still  against  the  armed  man  of  evil-will  one 
may  sing: 

"  Blessed  be  Jehovah  my  rock, 
Who  teacheth  my  hands  to  war, 
And  my  fingers  to  fight: 
My  lovingkindness  and  my  fortress. 
My  high  tower,  and  my  dehverer; 
My  shield,  and  He  in  whom  I  take  refuge." 
(Psalm  cxliv,   i,  2.) 

Let  it  be  said  again  that  the  time  will  come 
when  all  this  sort  of  argumentation  will  seem 
to  men  the  talk  of  a  forgotten  day.  It  will 
be  then  the  talk  of  a  bygone  time.  But  the 
day  is  not  forgotten  now  nor  the  time  bygone. 
It  is  the  reality  of  life  and  duty  to  us.  It  is 
in  this  world  that  we  are  living,  not  in  that 
new  and  different  world.  And  we  shall 
never  bring  that  other  and  better  day  in  if 
we  do  not  do  our  duty  now.  Our  duty  now 
is  to  refute  the  false  ideals  of  military  autoc- 


30  The  Christian  Man, 

racy  and  of  willful  power,  to  check  and  throw 
back  national  ambition  that  ignores  the  rights 
of  the  weak  and  that  aims  at  usurpation  and 
dominion,  to  destroy  at  any  cost  to  ourselves 
the  principle  of  war,  to  deliver  mankind  from 
the  unbearable  burden  of  armaments  and 
dread  of  attack.  It  is  not  tolerable  to  live  in 
such  a  world.  And  if  there  is  no  other  es- 
cape from  it  than  by  the  death  of  men  in  war, 
let  us  die  so,  in  order  that  other  men  may 
live  in  a  different  world. 

But  if  what  is  said  here  is  true  and  we  are 
justified  in  this  one  more  war  to  stop  war,  it 
does  not  follow  that  we  are  free  to  yield  to 
the  spirit  that  we  set  out  to  destroy.  Pre- 
cisely otherwise.  If  this  view  now  allows 
and  warrants  war,  it  also  warns  and  cautions 
and  sobers  us.  It  bids  us  be  rid  of  our  preju- 
dice and  passion,  to  chant  no  hymns  of  hate, 
to  keep  our  aims  and  our  principles  free  from 
selfishness  and  from  any  national  interest 
which  is  not  also  the  interest  of  all  nations, 
to  refrain  from  doing  in  retaliation  and  in 
war  the  very  things  we  condemn  in  others,  to 
avoid  Prussianism  in  our  national  life  in  the 
effort  to  crush  Prussianism,  to  guard  against 
the  moral  uncleanness  which  has  character- 
ized past  wars  as  against  pestilence,  to  mag- 
nify the  great  constructive  and  humane  serv- 
ices for  which  humanity  calls  in  every  such 


the  Church  and  the  War  31 

time  of  tragedy,  to  love  and  pray  for  our 
enemies,  to  realize  that  the  task  set  for  us  is 
not  to  be  discharged  in  a  year  or  five  years, 
nor  by  money  and  ships  and  guns,  but  by  life, 
that  it  is  a  war  to  the  death  against  all  that 
makes  war  possible.  We  have  to  replace 
an  order  of  selfishness  and  wrong  and  di- 
vision with  an  order  of  brotherhood  and 
righteousness  and  unity.  Whatever  stands 
in  the  way  of  that  new  order  in  our 
nation  or  in  our  hearts  is  an  ally  of  the 
ideals  and  spirit  against  which  we  contend. 
To  tolerate  or  to  conceal  behind  our  armies 
the  policies,  the  prejudices  or  the  passions 
which  are  before  them  is  disloyalty.  To  try 
to  make  our  own  hearts  pure  and  our  own 
hands  clean  so  that  we  may  be  worthy  of 
being  used  to  achieve  victory  and  peace  is  loy- 
alty, and  it  is  the  only  kind  of  loyalty  that  will 
stand  the  strain  that  we  must  now  prepare 
ourselves  to  meet. 


II 

THE    CHURCH    AND  THE   WAR 

The  problem  of  war  to  the  Church  is  even 
greater  than  its  problem  for  the  Christian 
man.  All  that  makes  the  problem  difficult 
for  the  individual  makes  it  difficult  also  for 
the  Church  and  there  is  more  besides.  The 
social  character  and  international  relations  of 
the  Church  and  its  sense  of  universal  mission 
make  its  implication  in  war  a  tragic  thing. 
The  problem  has  become  the  more  difficult 
to-day  also  by  reason  of  the  great  confusion 
surrounding  the  character  and  work  of  the 
Church,  its  aims,  its  functions,  its  legitimate 
business.  This  confusion  is  illustrated  in  the 
conflicting  criticisms  which  have  been  directed 
against  the  Church.  On  the  one  hand  it  was 
demanded  at  the  outbreak  of  the  war  four 
years  ago  that  the  Church  should  explain  why 
it  and  the  Christian  religion,  of  which  it  was 
the  representative,  had  not  prevented  the  war. 
If  only  the  Church  had  applied  Christianity 
to  the  hearts  of  rulers  and  to  the  relations  of 
32 


The  Church  and  the  War  33 

nations  the  war  could  not  have  been!  No 
doubt.  Likewise,  if  chloroform  had  been 
applied  to  the  rulers.  But  neither  Chris- 
tianity nor  chloroform  is  self-applying.  As 
the  war  went  on  and  it  became  the  conviction 
of  more  and  more  people  in  America  that  the 
nation  would  have  to  take  part  in  the  great 
struggle,  a  contrary  complaint  was  made 
against  the  Church.  Why  was  it  so  pacific? 
Why  did  it  not  fire  the  spirit  of  the  nation  and 
force  the  reluctance  of  the  President  and 
compel  the  entrance  of  America  into  the  war? 
But  the  President  had  charged  the  nation  to 
be  neutral  and  had  asked  to  be  allowed  to 
handle  the  intricate  situation  without  pres- 
sures which  would  limit  his  ability  to  do  the 
best  for  the  nation  and  mankind.  He  was 
showing  the  whole  world  an  example  of  mod- 
eration and  restraint.  Was  it  the  business 
of  the  Christian  Church  to  refuse  loyalty  to 
the  head  of  the  nation  acting  in  such  a  spirit 
and  with  tireless  purpose  to  preserve  peace 
until  it  could  no  longer  be  preserved?  Was 
it  the  Church's  true  function  to  precipitate 
the  war  or  to  support  in  every  way  the  Com- 
mander-in-Chief of  the  Army  and  Navy  in 
his  policy  to  avert  war  if  it  might  be  possible  ? 
The  confusion  with  regard  to  the  real  na- 
ture and  function  of  the  Church  illustrated  in 
these  colliding  criticisms  with  regard  to  the 


34  The  Christian  Man, 

initiation  of  the  war  is  revealed  also  In  the 
various  activities  urged  on  the  Church  now. 
Many  of  these  are  not  the  duty  of  the  Church 
at  all.  They  may  be  the  duties  of  Christian 
men.  If  they  are  patriotic  duties  they  assur- 
edly are  the  duties  of  Christian  men,  but  they 
are  not  the  business  of  the  institution  of  the 
Church.  This  confusion  Is  not  all  a  bad 
thing  by  any  means.  It  has  three  great  ad- 
vantages. It  compels  thoughtful  men  to  ask 
what  the  Church  is  and  what  business  it  has 
to  do  in  the  world.  It  requires  the  Church 
to  ask  itself  whether  It  Is  missing  any  true 
human  service  which  it  ought  to  be  rendering, 
whether  there  are  any  wide  human  relations 
which  it  Is  failing  to  fulfill,  or  whether  on  the 
other  hand  it  is  involved  In  weakening  com- 
promises and  Is  burdening  Itself  with  mis- 
taken tasks.  It  reveals  to  the  Church  the 
loss  from  Its  disunion  and  inefficiency. 

Let  me  speak  a  word  as  to  this  loss.  Let 
the  gains  of  division  be  granted, —  the  distri- 
bution of  responsibility,  the  multiplied  cen- 
ters of  energy,  the  flexibility  and  freedom, 
the  room  for  the  play  of  unity  of  spirit  In 
spite  of  disunity  of  form,  the  possibility  of 
progress  through  emulation  and  mutual  attri- 
tion, and  all  else  that  can  be  claimed.  There 
Is  on  the  other  hand  the  Indisputable  loss. 
There  are  things  that  the  Church  cannot  do, 


the  Church  and  the  War  35 

influences  it  cannot  wield,  voices  it  cannot 
utter,  moral  demands  it  cannot  make,  services 
it  cannot  render.  It  lost  the  control  of  edu- 
cation and  of  charity  through  disunion.  Our 
ecclesiastical  condition  is  one  which  unfits  us 
for  this  as  for  so  many  others  of  the  social 
functions  of  the  Christian  Church.  Our  rent 
and  divided  Christendom  could  not  take  di- 
rection of  the  forces  and  resources  of  elemen- 
tary education  and  of  charity  without  such  a 
waste  of  both  as  we  already  see  in  the  direc- 
tion of  the  forces  and  resources  devoted  to 
the  proper  work  of  the  Church;  and  that  the 
public  would  not  endure.  (Thompson's 
"  Divine  Order  of  Human  Society,"  p.  175.) 
But  the  loss  through  this  secularization  is 
great.  And  if  the  Church  were  really  one 
now,  or  were  prepared  to  act  as  a  unity  it 
would  render  to  the  nations  and  the  world  in 
this  special  hour  a  service  which  nothing  else 
can  give  and  for  the  lack  of  which  mankind 
will  suffer  for  many  a  day. 

But  the  Church  can  come  nearer  to  efficient 
service  of  the  nation  and  the  world  to-day, 
even  divided  as  we  are,  by  clearing  away  as 
much  as  possible  of  the  confusion  of  our 
thought  as  to  what  the  work  of  the  Church 
ought  to  be  in  this  time  of  war,  and  what  its 
place  Is  in  society.  We  seem  to  have  for- 
gotten that  there  are  three  divine  institutions 


36  The  Christian  Man, 

and  we  are  mixing  them  up,  Interchanging 
and  commingling  their  functions,  sometimes 
raising  unwarranted  conflicts  between  them 
and  sometimes  allowing  unwarranted  alli- 
ances. These  three  Institutions  for  which, 
In  spite  of  the  old-fashioned  sound  of  It,  a 
special  sanction  Is  claimed,  are  the  family, 
the  State  and  the  Church.  Their  confusion 
Is  not  unnatural.  The  same  man  belongs  to 
all  three,  and  he  cannot  separate  himself 
from  any  one  of  them  unless,  of  course,  he 
becomes  an  outlaw  from  his  family,  an  expa- 
triate of  his  State,  or  foregoes  his  place  In  the 
Church.  And  all  three  of  these  Institutions 
are  religious,  not  the  Church  alone.  The 
family  and  the  State  are  as  truly  religious  and 
divine  as  the  Church.  If  any  one  of  the 
three  is  to  be  picked  out  as  more  religious 
and  of  diviner  sanction  than  the  rest  It  is  the 
family.  It  came  first.  It  has  its  ideal  in 
the  nature  of  God.  It  satisfies  more  of  the 
human  needs  than  any  other  institution.  It 
Is  the  fundamental  social  unit.  It  Is  the  goal 
of  human  life.  In  John's  vision  of  the  heav- 
enly city,  he  saw  the  nations  gathered  Into  the 
family  home  of  God,  but  he  saw  no  Church 
there.  And  especially  do  we  need  to-day  to 
conceive  of  the  State  not  as  supreme  and  di- 
vine In  that  German  sense  whose  shadow  we 
are  pushing  back  across  the  world,  but  as  a 


the  Church  and  the  War  37 

divine  Institute  none  the  less  in  its  own  sphere, 
and  bound  to  the  same  moral  law  that  binds 
men  and  as  is  witnessed  by  the  Church.  Citi- 
zenship is  a  sacred  and  religious  thing.  And 
these  three  institutions  are  confused  not  only 
because  the  same  man  is  in  each  one,  and  be- 
cause all  are  alike  religious,  but  also  because 
they  cannot  be  too  sharply  differentiated  in 
their  spheres.  Each  glides  Into  the  others, 
and  through  the  years  there  have  been  con- 
stant transitions  of  function.  At  first  the 
school  was  entirely  In  the  family,  then  it 
passed  under  the  Church,  and  now  from  the 
Church  It  has  passed  to  the  State.  The 
Church  Itself  has  moved  through  a  wide 
range  of  relationships  in  connection  with  the 
State.  But  confused  as  these  three  institu- 
tions are,  they  can  and  must  be  seen  In  some 
distinction  of  function  for  the  sake  of  each 
and  as  against  the  peril  that  the  Interests  of 
mankind  may  be  permanently  damaged 
through  the  absorption  by  any  one  of  the  busi- 
ness of  the  others  or  the  failure  of  any  one 
to  make  Its  own  distinctive  and  necessary  con- 
tribution. Roughly,  it  suffices  to  character^ 
ize  the  family  as  the  Institute  of  the  affec- 
tions, the  State  as  the  Institute  of  rights,  and 
the  Church  as  the  Institute  of  humanity. 

Our  concern  here  is  with  the  last.     As  the 
institute  of  humanity  what  shall  we  say  of 


38  The  Christian  Man, 

the  character,  the  function,  the  work  of  the 
Church  In  America  now? 

First  of  all,  the  Church  is  not  one  of  a 
hundred  agencies.  It  is  one  of  three.  It  is 
not  a  mere  appendage,  and  tool  of  the  State, 
to  endorse  State  action  just  because  It  is  such, 
to  echo  the  voice  of  a  contemporaneous  po- 
litical policy.  Such  a  theory  would  soon  re- 
duce the  Church  to  a  nullity.  Its  members 
belong  to  other  organizations  which  can  ful- 
fill these  functions  without  the  trammels  of 
which  the  Church  cannot  divest  itself.  And 
these  organizations  can  render  a  service  of 
this  character  which  would  soon  obscure  any 
echo  which  the  Church  can  contribute.  Such 
a  theory  would  destroy  the  highest  service 
which  the  Church  can  render,  which  Is  to 
bring  the  State  the  immeasurable  support  of 
its  independent  moral  judgment,  upholding 
right  and  condemning  wrong.  If  a  war 
projected  by  the  State  is  wrong  the  Church 
ought  to  condemn  it.  If  it  is  right  the 
Church  should  support  it,  not  because  the 
State  has  proposed  it,  but  because  it  is  right. 
On  this  basis  the  Church  makes  a  positive 
moral  contribution  to  the  nation.  On  any 
other  basis  it  undermines  the  nation's  moral 
character. 

But  the  Church  is  not  a  political  judge  and 
divider.     There  have  been  conceptions  of  the 


the  Church  and  the  War  39 

Church  which  led  it  to  seek  such  an  office. 
In  America  we  hold  it  to  a  different  sphere. 
It  has  not  been  easy  to  do  so.  There  are 
earnest  men  who  from  the  outset  of  the  war 
have  dreamed  that  the  Church  might  in  some 
great  utterance  prescribe  to  the  world  the 
rearrangements  of  the  life  and  relations  of 
the  nations  which  would  end  the  struggle  and 
bring  us  peace.  But  there  has  never  been  a 
time  in  this  generation,  surely  not  since  Janu- 
ary 1st,  19 14,  when  any  imaginable  state- 
ment could  have  done  anything  of  the  sort. 
No  statement  can  do  it  now.  The  President 
has  made  as  admirable  statements  as  can  be 
made  and  he  can  be  trusted  to  make  others 
as  they  become  necessary.  What  is  needed 
is  deeds.  Only  acts,  words  wrought  into 
life  and  sacrifice,  can  avail  now.  Invaded 
soil  must  be  restored.  Immeasurable  wrongs 
must  be  repaired.  The  dead  cannot  be 
avenged.  Vengeance  is  mine,  I  will  repay, 
saith  the  Lord.  But  a  new  world  can  be 
brought  in  where  the  innocent  shall  not  be 
slain.  But  no  phrases  of  speech  or  clever 
proclamations  can  achieve  these  ends  now. 
We  are  thrown  back  reverently  on  a  deeper 
word  than  any  we  can  say,  the  old  word  which 
declares  that  without  shedding  of  blood  there 
is  no  remission  of  sins.  More  truth  is  to  be 
spoken,  but  also  more  life  is  to  be  laid  down. 


40  The  Christian  Man, 

If  the  Church  is  not  a  political  echo  nor  a 
political  judge,  what  is  it?  It  is  a  minister 
of  service,  a  fountain  of  moral  life  and  duty, 
a  witness  to  enduring  and  universal  princi- 
ples. And  its  faithful  fulfillment  of  these 
functions  now  is  needed  as  urgently  as  ever 
in  its  history.  A  deputation  from  one  of  the 
Churches  asked  President  Wilson  how  the 
Church  could  best  support  him  and  serve  the 
nation  in  this  hour.  The  President  replied 
by  "  calling  upon  the  Church  to  remain  true 
to  its  spiritual  ideals  and  to  glorify  the  prin- 
ciples of  justice  and  of  liberty  which  have 
given  it  birth." 

And  what  is  the  service  which  in  this  main- 
tenance of  the  moral  and  religious  life  of  the 
nation  at  full  measure  the  Church  must  ren- 
der? Primarily  and  preeminently  it  is  the 
service  of  keeping  elementary  principles  clear, 
and  especially  two  of  these.  Not  long  ago  a 
friend,  a  newspaper  man,  described  to  me  his 
views  of  the  present  social  and  political  order 
and  the  way  out.  The  escape  was  by  the  lit- 
eral appHcation  of  what  he  conceived  to  be 
the  teaching  and  principles  of  Jesus,  which  he 
regarded  as  the  only  pure  common  sense 
which  had  ever  been  uttered.  This  teaching 
rested  on  the  assumption  of  the  absolute  sa- 
credness  of  life,  and  involved  the  conse- 
quent duty  of  complete  non-resistance,     He 


the  Church  and  the  War  41 

was    led    on    to    speak    of    a    conversation 
with  his   son,   who  had  asked  him  whether 
a    lie    was    ever    justifiable    and    to    whom 
he  had  rephed  that  he  had  troubles  enough 
of    his    own    without    being    assaulted    with 
such   problems.     When,    however,    the   boy 
expressed    the    view    that    a     lie     even    to 
save   Hfe   was   never   right,    his    father   had 
taken    issue    with    him    declaring    that    the 
obligation  of  truth  was  only  relative  and  that 
to  set  it  above  the  obligation  of  life  was  to 
make  a  fetish  of  a  man's  scruples  and  to  sac- 
rifice duty  to  it.      My  friend  seemed  to  me, 
however,  to  have  exactly  reversed  the  moral 
principles  involved.      I  believe  that  Jesus  and 
the  New  Testament  teach  the  relativity  of  the 
right  of  life  and  the  absoluteness  of  the  claims 
of  truth,  and  that  these  are  just  the  funda- 
mental issues  of  the  present  hour.     If  the 
principle  of  life  is  absolute  and  of  truth  rela- 
tive, why  should  men  die  for  a  cause,  how 
can  a  cause  ask  men  for  their  lives?     But  I 
believe  it  is  truth  and  righteousness  which  is 
the  absolute  and  sovereign  value,  for  which 
alone  we  have  a  right  to  war,  and  to  count 
life  in  comparison  a  secondary  thing  to  be 
poured  out  without  reserve.     To  these  prin- 
ciples the  Church  needs  to  bear  an  unmistak- 
able witness  and  to  build  them  as  a  great  rock 
under  our  national  thought  and  purpose.     If 


42  The  Christian  Man, 

presently  when  the  sacrifices  multiply  and  the 
toll  of  death  is  long,  men  do  not  hold,  on 
principle,  that  life  is  nothing  at  all  in  com- 
parison with  truth,  and  that  we  had  better  all 
die  than  let  wrong  triumph,  where  will  our 
strength  be  found?  The  certainty  of  victory 
is  with  those  who  see  the  principle  of  truth  as 
absolute  and  uncompromisable  and  who  deem 
life  of  value  only  for  truth's  sake. 

The  Church  is  not  only  a  witness  to  the 
elemental  moral  principles.  It  is  also  a  min- 
ister of  unselfish  service.  There  are  critics 
of  the  Church  who  have  been  asking  what  it 
has  been  doing  or  can  do  when  a  nation  comes 
to  a  great  struggle  such  as  this  where,  as  it  is 
explained,  the  real  issues  are  material  and 
economic,  and  who  have  derided  the  Church 
for  its  inefficiency  and  its  dissensions.  But 
the  facts  are  different.  Never  before  for 
many  a  day  have  the  Churches  been  drawn 
together  in  faith  and  service  as  they  are  to- 
day. No  other  agencies  in  the  nation  were 
more  promptly  or  deeply  touched  with  a  com- 
mon spirit  of  resolve  and  duty,  with  a  realiza- 
tion of  the  need  of  cooperation  and  concord 
in  view  of  the  immensity  and  the  unity  of  the 
task  in  the  army  and  in  the  nation.  The 
necessary  forms  of  common  action  were  at 
once  established.  An  object  adequately  great 
and  single  showed  itself  able,  as  always,  to 


the  Church  and  the  War  43 

unite  men.  Divisions,  however  historically 
significant,  were  seen  to  be  outworn  and  un- 
warranted unless  they  increased  the  resources 
and  capacity  of  all  for  the  one  great  task. 
As  I  have  said,  there  is  still  a  long  way  to  go 
before  the  Church  is  where  it  ought  to  be, 
but  in  two  ways  the  Church  is  making  prog- 
ress thither  and  must  make  more.  ( i ) 
First,  by  the  principle  of  unselfishness  and 
sacrifice.  The  war  represents  the  suprem- 
acy of  this  principle  over  life,  and  many  men 
have  learned  its  supremacy  over  money. 
When  before  has  a  nation  embodied  the  rec- 
ognition of  this  in  its  revenue  laws  as  we 
have  done  in  the  Income  Tax  Law  section  on 
charitable  gifts?  But  we  need  to  learn  this 
lesson  as  to  name  and  work  and  institution. 
In  one  of  the  army  camps  I  picked  up  a  copy 
of  a  short  life  of  Huxley  and  read  in  it  this 
statement  of  his  aims,  written  in  his  jour- 
nal, December  31st,  1856,  "To  smite  all 
humbug,  however  big;  to  give  a  nobler  tone 
to  service;  to  set  an  example  of  abstinence 
frorn  petty  personal  controversies  and  of  tol- 
eration for  everything  but  lying;  to  be  indif- 
ferent as  to  whether  the  work  is  recognized 
as  mine,  so  long  as  it  is  done."  Those 
agencies,  whatever  their  character,  which  act 
with  such  purpose  will  emerge  from  the  war 
strongest.     Those   which    seek   in    any   way 


44  The  Christian  Man, 

their  own  gain  or  aggrandizement  will  pay 
the  price  of  their  self-seeking  in  a  time  when 
the  law  of  sacrifice  must  be  supreme.  (2) 
Secondly,  by  the  spirit  of  confidence  and  ap- 
preciation and  trust.  The  task  before  the 
nation  is  too  immense  for  men  to  waste  time 
in  mere  negative  criticism.  It  is  a  day  for 
appreciation  of  what  men  are  trying  to  do, 
each  in  his  place,  in  the  government  and  in 
private  life.  And  the  Churches  must  live  and 
work  in  the  same  spirit.  All  of  them  com- 
bined cannot  do  all  the  work  which  is  to  be 
done.  If  some  things  are  attempted  in  dup- 
lication it  need  not  be  wondered  at.  It  is 
better  that  it  should  be  so  than  that  they 
should  not  be  attempted  at  all.  It  is  a  day  to 
practice  the  faith  in  our  fellow  men  of  which 
Paul  speaks  (Eph.  i,  15).  If  we  cannot  do 
this  individually,  within  the  nation,  and  above 
all,  between  the  Churches,  if  we  are  suspi- 
cious of  one  another  and  question  each  other's 
fidelity,  or  seek  our  own  glory,  how  can  we 
hope  to  promote  international  good  faith  and 
the  spirit  of  confidence  and  trust  between  race 
and  race? 

And  there  are  services  which  the  nation 
needs  of  the  Church  to-day  which,  with  what- 
ever unity  it  can  command,  the  Church  must 
perform,  and  perform  now. 

The  Church  has  a  work  to  do  in  making 


the  Church  and  the  War  45 

the  army.  The  camps  have  not  been  estab- 
lished to  provide  a  field  for  ev^angelistic  work 
for  the  Church.  But  the  Church  exists  to  do, 
wherever  men  are  gathered,  the  work  of 
character  building  which  is  essential  in  creat- 
ing an  army.  In  a  manly  and  soldierly  ad- 
dress which  he  made  to  a  group  of  new  of- 
ficers at  Camp  Wadsworth,  General  O'Ryan 
declared  the  three  things  requisite  to  the 
building  of  a  strong  army  to  be  ( i )  personal 
character,  (2)  discipline  and  unity,  and  (3) 
equipment  and  military  technique.  The 
fundamental  thing  w^as  morale  and  the  fiber 
of  character  in  the  individual.  The  great 
foes  of  such  character  are  the  vices  against 
which  the  Church  and  the  nation  wage  war.- 
Never  before  in  history  has  a  government 
thrown  around  the  assembling  and  training  of 
an  army  such  safeguards  as  those  which  the 
United  States  has  used  in  this  emergency. 
The  moral  sense  of  the  nation  has  been  given 
a  redoubled  confidence  in  the  government  by 
what  has  been  done.  And  it  is  necessary  not 
only  to  provide  just  outward  restraints  and 
protections  but  also  to  supply  men  with  in- 
ward fortitude  and  resolution.  The  disci- 
pline of  the  army  cannot  follow  each  soldier 
every  hour  by  day  and  night.  There  will 
come  times  when  unless  he  is  fortified  by  firm 
purpose   and  religious  principle   he   will  be 


4^  The  Christian  Man, 

found  unprotected  and  will  be  overthrown. 
And  all  moral  wreckage,  the  makers  of  the 
army  clearly  see,  Is  folly  and  waste.  To 
train  a  man  to  be  a  soldier,  to  spend  freely 
of  the  public  revenue  to  make  him  efficient  In 
the  work  of  war,  and  then  to  find  that  he  can- 
not fight  at  all  but  must  be  supported  by  the 
government  In  a  hospital,  not  only  a  non-com- 
batant but  an  Incubus  upon  every  fighting  man. 
Is  not  warfare,  It  is  military  and  economic 
Idiocy.  The  nation  needs  religion  function- 
ing with  freedom  and  power  in  and  around 
the  camps  in  its  work  of  making  character. 
And  religion  is  needed  not  to  make  character 
only  but  just  as  much  to  make  power.  The 
best  soldiers  the  nation  has  had  from  Wash- 
ington to  our  own  day  have  been  Christian 
men.  The  Civil  War  produced  no  general 
of  more  remarkable  power  than  Stonewall 
Jackson,  and  Colonel  Henderson,  his  biog- 
rapher, tells  us  of  him  that  his  "  religion  en- 
tered Into  every  action  of  his  life.  No  duty, 
however  trivial,  was  begun  without  asking  a 
blessing,  or  ended  without  returning  thanks. 
'  He  had  long  cultivated,'  he  said,  '  the  habit 
of  connecting  the  most  trivial  and  customary 
acts  of  life  with  a  silent  prayer.'  Hie  took 
the  Bible  as  his  guide.  .  .  .  He  prayed 
without  ceasing,  under  fire  or  in  camp.  .  .  . 


the  Church  and  the  War  47 

He  prayed  for  help  to  do  his  duty,  and  he 
prayed  for  success.     He  knew  that 

"  More  things  are  wrought  by  prayer 
Than  this  world  dreams  of ;  " 

but  he  knew  also,  that  prayer  is  not  always 
answered  in  the  way  which  man  would  have 
it.  He  went  into  battle  with  supreme  confi- 
dence, not,  as  has  been  alleged,  that  the  Lord 
had  delivered  the  enemy  into  his  hands,  but 
that  whatever  happened  would  be  the  best 
that  could  happen.  And  he  was  as  free  from 
cant  as  from  self-deception.  It  may  be  said 
of  Jackson,  as  has  been  said  so  eloquently  of 
the  men  whom,  in  some  respects,  he  closely 
resembled,  that  '  his  Bible  was  literally  food 
to  his  understanding  and  a  guide  to  his  con- 
duct. He  saw  the  visible  finger  of  God  in 
every  incident  of  life.'  "  (Henderson, 
"  Life  of  Stonewall  Jackson,"  Vol.  I,  pp.  61, 
73.)  At  the  end  of  his  picture  Col.  Hen- 
derson speaks  of  "  the  consuming  earnestness, 
the  absolute  fearlessness,  whether  of  danger 
or  of  responsibility,  the  utter  disregard  of 
men  and  the  unquestioning  faith  in  the  Al- 
mighty, which  made  up  the  individuality 
which  men  called  Stonewall  Jackson."  We 
need  the  Stonewalls  to-day  and  it  is  religion 
that  can  make  them  for  us.     General  Persh- 


48  The  Christian  Man, 

Ing  evidently  so  believes.  In  his  dispatch  of 
January  i8,  191 8,  he  advised  the  State  De- 
partment: "  In  the  fulfillment  of  its  duty  to 
the  nation  much  is  expected  of  our  army  and 
nothing  should  be  left  undone  that  will  help 
in  keeping  It  in  the  highest  state  of  efficiency. 
I  believe  the  personnel  of  the  army  has  never 
been  equalled  and  the  conduct  has  been  excel- 
lent, but  to  overcome  entirely  the  conditions 
found  here  requires  fortitude  born  of  great 
courage  and  lofty  spiritual  Ideas.  Counting 
myself  responsible  for  the  welfare  of  our 
men  in  every  respect  it  is  my  desire  to  sur- 
round them  with  the  best  influence  possible. 
In  the  fulfillment  of  this  solemn  trust  It  seems 
wise  to  request  the  aid  of  churchmen  from 
home."  The  Church  must  do  the  same  work 
here  as  In  France. 

The  Church  has  a  work  to  do  In  conserving 
the  religious  future  of  the  nation.  Its  care 
for  the  young  men  enrolled  in  the  army  Is 
essential  for  the  making  of  the  army.  It  is 
equally  essential  for  the  future  well  being  of 
American  life.  The  Government  has  justifi- 
ably lifted  these  young  men  out  of  our  homes 
and  communities.  The  military  conscription 
law  was  one  of  the  most  just  and  prudent 
laws  ever  enacted.  Once  the  task  of  the  na- 
tion was  clear  It  was  the  nation's  duty  to 
apportion  that  task  among  its  citizens.     The 


the  Church  and  the  War  49 

financial  burden  was  equitably  distributed  by 
taxation  and  loans.  The  burden  of  personal 
service  was  equitably  distributed  by  the  draft 
law.  It  would  have  been  as  reasonable  to 
provide  the  funds  needed  for  the  war  by  vol- 
untary subscriptions  as  to  provide  the  troops 
by  voluntary  enlistment.  And  just  as  the 
allotment  of  such  taxes  Is  an  honor  and  their 
payment  a  sacred  privilege  so  the  conscrip- 
tion of  life  was  an  honor  and  the  acceptance 
of  personal  service  a  sacred  preferment.  If 
there  was  any  error  at  all,  it  was  In  not  mak- 
ing the  conscription  cover  all  other  service  as 
well  as  the  service  of  the  army.  But  this 
justified  and  honoring  conscription  of  men 
laid  upon  the  nation  a  solemn  obligation.  It 
was  bound  to  see  that  the  best  influences  of 
home  and  community  life  were,  as  far  as  pos- 
sible, provided  for  these  young  men.  Those 
to  whom  it  is  not  given  to  die  for  the  cause 
will  come  back  again.  They  must  come  back 
stronger  men,  ready  to  carry  forward  the 
great  traditions  and  institutions  of  our  Amer- 
ican life.  Their  homes  and  their  churches 
feel  that  they  have  a  right  and  a  duty  to  hold 
them  fast  for  their  own  sake  and  for  the  na- 
tion's sake,  in  the  Interest  of  to-day  and  In 
the  Interest  of  to-morrow.  And  all  this  Is 
the  army's  own  gain. 

The  Church  has  a  work  to  do  in  enlarging 


50  The  Christian  Man, 

the  moral  values  and  In  using  to  the  full  the 
moral  resources  of  the  nation.  The  moral 
aims  of  the  war  need  to  be  clearly  seen  and 
the  vision  must  not  be  allowed  to  fade.  The 
nation  is  not  fighting  the  war  for  the  war's 
sake.  We  are  fighting  it  for  the  sake  of  Bel- 
gium and  France  and  Armenia  and  humanity. 
We  are  fighting  it  not  because  we  love  war 
but  because  we  hate  it  and  see  no  other  way 
of  stopping  it  once  and  forever.  We  are 
fighting  it  for  the  sake  of  ending  ideals  of 
false  nationalism,  of  preventing  the  purpose 
of  world  domination  by  German  autocracy. 
As  an  advertisement  of  the  National  Security 
League  puts  it  in  offering  a  reward  of  $1000 
for  "  the  best  suggestion  as  to  how  to  get  to 
the  German  masses  these  facts: 


We  are  fighting  for  the  German  masses,  not  against 
them. 
We  are  fighting  the  Prussian  Military  Autocracy 
Which    is    forcing   thousands    of    the   German 
masses  to  be  killed  daily  — 
The  Autocracy  that  is  making  slaves  of  the  masses 
So  that  Germany  can  make  vassals 
Of  the  rest  of  the  European  Nations. 
That  Autocracy  that  is  trying  to  rule  the  world  by 
force, 
The  Autocracy  that  Is  preventing  peace. 
The  United   States  does  not  want  German  land, 
money  or  business. 


the  Church  and  the  War  51; 

The  United  States  is  fighting  for  the  Liberty  of  the 
masses  — 
For  our  Liberty  —  for  the  Liberty  of  the  World. 
And  we  will  fight  until  we  get 

FREEDOM  FOR  ALL  FOREVER." 

These  are  some  of  the  clear  moral  aims  of 
the  war.  Many  influences  will  obscure 
them.  The  Church  needs  to  keep  them 
clear.  We  are  seeking  nothing  for  our- 
selves that  we  do  not  want  to  share  with  all 
peoples,  including  the  German  people. ^  ^ 

In  such  a  struggle  material  and  military 
forces  alone  will  not  suffice.  There  must  be 
behind  them  and  in  them  a  moral  purpose 
and  energy  and  consecration  which  will  save 
these  forces  from  their  own  perils  and  use 
them  for  the  great  ideal  ends  which  the  Presi- 
dent has  stated  in  ways  which  satisfy  the  con- 
science of  the  American  people.  It  is  the 
business  of  the  Church  to  awaken  and  sustain 
this  purpose  and  energy  and  consecration.  A 
personal  letter  from  an  official  of  the  Govern- 
ment in  Washington  will  state  the  matter  bet- 
ter than  any  words  which  I  can  use : 

"  I  have  discovered  that  there  is  a  very  definite 
limit  beyond  which  it  is  not  proper  for  the  Govern- 
ment to  go  in  affirming  moral  ideals  and  mobilizing 
the  mental  and  spiritual  forces  of  the  country  for 
national  service.     The   State   and   the   Church    are 


52  The  Christian  Man, 

officially  disunited,  and  it  is  well  indeed  that  this 
is  so. 

"  But  there  is  a  point  where  the  State  leaves  off 
and  the  Church  begins.  And  I,  as  an  individual 
Christian  man,  and  not  as  a  functionary  of  the 
Government,  seem  to  see  a  great  work  which  the 
Church,  as  a  whole,  might  take  up,  at  the  very  point 
where  the  State  must,  of  logical  necessity,  lay  it 
down. 

*'  The  national  propaganda  which  must  be  put 
out  to  serve  the  purposes  of  the  Government  must 
appeal  to  men  to  volunteer  their  lives  and  their 
services  in  the  national  defense ;  to  give  their  money 
to  humanitarian  work  made  imperative  by  the 
operations  of  war;  to  buy  bonds  which  furnish 
money  to  build  armies  and  navies. 

"  All  this  is  necessary  to  be  done,  and  it  is  clearly 
within  the  province  of  the  State  to  do  this.  In 
securing  these  results  it  is  also  within  the  province 
of  the  State  to  affirm  the  accepted  national  ideals  of 
liberty,  justice,  truth,  fairness,  and  so  on,  and  to 
appeal  to  the  nobler  instincts  of  devotion  to  the 
common  good,  self-sacrifice,  and  standing  for  prin- 
ciple at  the  cost  of  life  and  treasure. 

"  But,  looking  upon  the  net  result  of  all  this 
Government  propaganda,  I,  as  a  Christian  man,  and 
not  as  a  Government  functionary,  can  see  that  it 
tends  mightily  to  create  throughout  the  country  the 
sentiment  that  '  Victory  will  be  on  the  side  of  the 
biggest  army.'  Therefore  we  must  build  the  biggest 
army,  and  fight  in  the  biggest  way  possible. 

"  The  State,  as  such,  can  do  no  otherwise. 

'*  And  we  see  even  ministers  of  the  Gospel  catch- 


the  Church  and  the  War 


53 


ing  step  with  this  idea  which  is  implied  b}^  the 
Government  propaganda,  and  emphasizing  the  duties 
of  citizenship  just  as  the  Government  is  doing, 
which,  of  course,  is  all  well  and  good,  but  they  are 
doing  it  to  the  exclusion  of  their  higher  function  of 
emphasizing  the  spiritual  fact  that,  finally,  and 
unquestionably.  Right  makes  might.  The  biggest 
army  that  could  be  imagined  must  be  wisely  directed 
or  its  efforts  will  not  win  a  victory  for  the  Right, 
and  the  wisdom  which  is,  therefore,  the  supreme 
necessity  of  the  Nation,  no  matter  how  big  its 
armies  may  be,  is  a  spiritual  quality,  gained  by  con- 
tact with  the  Source  of  all  Wisdom. 

*'  To  give  emphasis  to  this  fact,  which  all  spirit- 
ually minded  men  can  see  is  a  national  bulwark  of 
the  first  order,  is  not  the  function  of  the  State  but 
of  the  Church. 

"  But  unless  the  emphasis  which  the  Church  gives 
to  this  idea  is  national  in  its  scope  it  wnll  not  be  suffi- 
cient to  offset,  or  rather  balance,  the  effect  of  the 
organized  Government  propaganda  which  leaves  the 
impression  that  we  shall  win  only  by  having  the 
biggest  armies. 

'*  Ever>'thing  that  tends  in  a  certain  direction  will, 
as  you  know,  keep  on  tending  that  way,  and  grow- 
ing more  so,  unless  something  commensurate  with 
it  counteracts  it. 

**  Now  this  Government  propaganda  must  go 
right  on;  and  because  it  stops  short  of  spiritual 
things,  and  their  relation  to  national  success,  it  leaves 
the  inference  that  *  God  is  on  the  side  of  the  greatest 
armies.' 

**  It  may  not  be  the  intention  of  the  Government 


54  The  Christian  Man, 

to  give  this  impression,  and  yet  because  it  can  not 
speak  frankly  of  spiritual  forces  in  relation  to  the 
final  victory,  it  has  the  same  effect  as  if  the  Govern- 
ment ignored  spiritual  forces  and  avowedly  propa- 
gated the  doctrine  that  '  Victory  will  be  determined 
by  Force.'  .  .  . 

"  And  yet,  if  the  Church  as  a  whole  stands  for 
any  one  idea  about  which  there  could  be  no  dispute, 
it  is  the  idea  that  God  rules  the  world  and  the 
Universe  and  determines  issues  by  the  superior 
weight  of  moral  and  spiritual  force  rather  than  by 
the  preponderance  of  material  forces  unsupported 
by  Him. 

"  Now,  it  seems  to  me,  that  the  State  and  the 
Church  are  not  in  conflict,  but  that  it  takes  both  of 
them  to  produce  the  perfect  balance ;  and  that  if  too 
much  weight  is  being  put  into  one  side  of  the  scale, 
the  other  side  will  go  up  beyond  the  balance,  and  the 
true  balance  will  be  lost,  and  with  it  all  things 
worth  while. 

"  The  remedy  for  this  situation,  this  growing  ten- 
dency towards  officially  imposed  materialism,  must 
be  found  in  the  constructive  action  of  the  Church  as 
a  whole. 

"  The  Church  as  a  whole  must  be  caused  to  see 
and  feel  that  the  very  foundations  of  spiritual  think- 
ing are  threatened  if  the  idea  continues  to  grow  by 
State  emphasis  that  '  Dynamite  determines  the  des- 
tiny of  nations.     Therefore  have  plenty  of  it.' 

"  The  Church  must,  if  true  to  its  responsibilities, 
restore  the  balance  by  demonstrating  to  the  minds  of 
men  that  no  matter  how  big  our  armies  may  be  they 
will  not  win  because  of  their  size,  but  because  of 


the  Church  and  the   War  55 

the  spiritual  force  with  which  they  are  directed,  and 
that  the  wisdom  which  will  make  them  eliective  for 
victory'  can  come  only  with  being  right  in  the  sight 
of  God,  and  seeking  His  guidance  in  our  efforts, 
through  organized  force,  to  '  make  the  world  safe 
for  democracy.'  Can  you  not  devise  an  organ- 
ized propaganda  for  the  mobilization  of  all  spirit- 
ually minded  people,  in  the  Churches  and  out.  Cath- 
olic and  Protestant,  Jew  and  Gentile,  to  reaffirm  the 
spiritual  ideal  that  God  really  governs  and  that  He 
will  give  the  victory,  at  last,  on  the  basis  of  right 
tendency,  right  ideals,  and  right  action. 

**  The  logical  outcome  of  all  spiritual  ideas  is 
reliance  upon  the  power  of  prayer.  Here,  then,  is 
the  high  point  of  the  message  which  the  federated 
Churches  should  give  out  to  the  people  as  an  offset 
to  the  inferences  being  drawn  from  State  propa- 
ganda. Let  them  demonstrate,  by  all  the  arts 
known  to  the  Church,  that  prayer,  and  the  right- 
eousness that  comes  from  right  prayer,  is  what  really 
won  and  established  every  great  good  that  ever  came 
to  humanity.  Show  that  Force  has  been  an  instru- 
ment in  the  hands  of  Righteousness,  but  that  Force 
itself  has  not  won  any  permanent  good.  Show  that 
what  we  are  fighting  for  to-day  is  to  dethrone  an 
autocracy  which  rests  upon  the  assumption  that 
Might  makes  Right. 

"  My  heart  is  with  you,  but  I  have  other  work  to 
do." 

But  the  Church  has  this  work  to  do. 

The  Church  has  a  work  to  do  also  In 
steadying  and  holding  fast  the  nation  when 


56  The  Christian  Man, 

the  time  of  tension  comes.  Superficial  en- 
thusiasm may  suffice  for  a  little  while.  Mo- 
tives of  pride  and  anger  and  indignation  and 
interest  may  last  through  an  hour.  But  noth- 
ing but  an  immovable  and  unselfish  moral 
purpose  will  endure  all  things.  When  the 
long  struggle  really  begins,  when  the  casualty 
lists  multiply  and  the  shadows  fall  across  the 
land,  when  the  light  hearted  and  the  selfish 
grow  faint  and  the  temptation  to  take  our 
hands  from  the  plow  and  turn  back  with  the 
furrow  unrun  comes  in  like  a  flood  upon  us, 
In  that  day  God  pity  us  if  we  have  no  divine 
faith  secure  against  every  strain,  no  purpose 
more  firm  and  resolute  than  hate  to  hold  us 
true.  "  Blessed  be  God,"  said  President 
Lincoln  to  a  Christian  delegation  in  a  dark 
hour  of  the  Civil  War.  ^'  Blessed  be  God, 
who  in  an  hour  like  this  giveth  us  the 
Churches."  The  Christian  Church  is  the 
custodian  of  the  forces  which  wear  down  and 
outlast  death.  All  the  merely  materialistic 
energies  and  the  motives  and  purposes  which 
are  kindred  to  them  will  go  down  in  the  time 
of  the  last  testing.  Like  John  Brown's  body 
they  will  simply  molder  under  us.  But  John 
Brown's  soul?  What  did  it  do?  What  Is 
It  doing  now?  Through  night  and  death  It 
has  come  on  and  the  fountains  of  life  which 
fed  that  soul  then  will  feed  our  souls  now  and 


the  Church  and  the  War  57 

until  this  war  is  won.  They  can  be  fed  on 
nothing  else.  We  need  in  our  nation  now 
the  sense  of  religion-nourished  duty  which 
sustained  our  fathers  in  the  two  great  past 
crises  of  our  history  and  which  alone  can  sus- 
tain us,  a  sense  of  duty  which,  as  Donald 
Hankey  said,  does  not  so  much  endure  diffi- 
culty as  deride  it,  a  sense  of  duty  which  no 
power  on  earth  or  under  the  earth  can  relax 
until  our  work  is  done. 

I  will  mention  one  other  service  which  the 
Church  must  render  to  the  nation  in  connec- 
tion with  the  war.  It  must  keep  us  from  de- 
stroying ^or  ourselves  what  we  are  fighting 
to  keep  our  enemies  from  destroying  for  us 
and  for  mankind.  We  are  contending 
against  injustice  and  wrong.  Can  we  be 
strong  for  this  contest  if  we  ourselves  are 
guilty  of  wrong  and  injustice?  We  are 
fighting  Prussianism.  Would  it  not  be  a 
tragedy  if  in  this  warfare  the  very  ideals 
and  methods  against  which  we  fight  should  in- 
sidiously conquer  us?  The  Church  at  least 
must  believe  in  a  gospel  of  truth  and  right- 
eousness and  preach  that  gospel  inflexibly  and 
uncowed.  And  a  gospel  of  truth  and  right- 
eousness is  not  a  gospel  of  hate.  Such  a 
gospel  is  being  preached  to  us.  These  sen- 
tences are  from  a  recent  pamphlet:  "The 
only  logical  conclusion  of  Germany's  career 


58  The  Christian  Man, 

of  crime  and  dirty  fighting  is,  at  the  close  of 
the  war,  the  contempt,  the  aversion  and  the 
loathing  of  the  civilized  world,  and  a  univer- 
sal policy  of  non-intercourse.  Let  Germany 
go  and  live  with  Austria,  and  the  loathsome 
Turk,  in  a  hell  of  their  own.  .  .  .  Through 
her  crimes  and  her  dirty  fighting,  Germany 
has  earned  the  contempt  and  aversion  of  the 
world,  and  it  will  be  paid  to  her  as  long  as 
civilization  endures.  .  .  .  Germany,  Austria 
and  Turkey  already  have  the  contempt,  the 
scorn  and  the  hatred  of  the  whole  world,  and 
after  the  war  they  should  be  ostracised  and 
shunned  for  a  thousand  years." 

It  is  hard  to  forgive  the  moral  madness 
beyond  belief  which  brought  on  the  war,  its 
enormous  wrongs,  its  pitiful  sufferings.  It 
Is  hard  to  see  how  God  Himself  can  forgive. 
But  He  can  forgive,  and  His  Spirit  and  His 
Spirit  alone  can  enable  men  to  forgive. 
There  has  been  no  more  noble  incident  in 
the  war,  real  or  apocryphal,  than  the  story, 
which  Amelia  Burr  has  put  into  verse,  of 
the  Belgian  children  coming  up  at  the  day's 
ending  from  their  underground  school  to 
make  their  way  down  the  ruined  village  street 
in  the  lulled  cannonade  of  the  evening.  One 
older  girl  led  the  little  flock.  Presently  they 
came  to  a  still  standing  crucifix  and  like  duti- 
ful children  they  stopped  for  their  prayer. 


the  Church  and  the  War  59 

"  Our  Father,"  they  began,  and  all  went  well 
as  far  as  "  our  daily  bread."  Some  of  the 
little  ones  stopped  there,  for  there  had  been 
that  day  no  daily  bread,  but  the  older  girl 
carried  it  bravely  on  until  she  came  to  "  As 
we  forgive  them  their  trespasses,"  and  then 
she  too  halted  and  stopped.  A  Belgian  sol- 
dier standing  by  with  his  head  bowed  and  his 
hat  in  hand  while  the  children  prayed  heard 
a  man's  voice  take  up  the  prayer  and  carry  it 
through.  "  Forgive  us  our  trespasses  as  we 
forgive  them  their  trespasses."  The  soldier 
looked  up  and  lo,  it  was  the  Belgian  King. 
If  Albert  of  Belgium,  wronged  beyond  us  all, 
could  forgive,  and  God  more  wronged  than 
he,  who  are  we  that  we  should  hate? 

And  hate  and  those  who  incite  the  nation 
to  hate  are  the  foes  of  our  life  to-day. 
There  cannot  be  too  deep  hate  of  evil  prin- 
ciples, but  hatred  of  persons  is  bad  religion, 
bad  psychology  and  bad  politics.  Hate  will 
burn  up  the  national  soul  in  impotence,  and 
scorch  the  national  conscience  to  cinder  at  a 
time  when  we  need  all  our  power  of  soul  and 
must  keep  our  conscience  as  clear  as  the  sun. 
"  Hatred,"  says  a  government  bulletin, 
"  many  say,  is  an  emotion  necessary  to  war. 
The  soldier,  they  say,  cannot  fight  unless  he 
hates.  Let  them  ask  the  soldier;  let  them 
talk  to  the  veteran  who  has  given  and  re- 


6o  The  Christian  Man, 

ceived  wounds,  and  they  will  find  that  the 
greater  hatred  is  among  civilians.  Passivity 
makes  for  an  emotion  of  hatred;  a  busy  man 
thinks  mostly  of  his  job.  Furthermore,  the 
characteristic  of  good  fighters  is  that  they  are 
'  good  sports.'  They  know  the  other  men 
are  ordered  to  fight  as  they  are  ordered,  and 
the  best  soldiers  are  often  those  men  who 
thoroughly  respect  their  foe.  ...  As  a 
matter  of  practical  wisdom,  we  want  abiding 
truth,  for  it  makes  abiding  conviction.  Emo- 
tions may  wave  and  surge.  They  are  read- 
ily stirred  by  some  story,  some  incident  about 
some  individual  soldier.  Frightful  resolves 
thus  are  easily  inspired.  But  let  the  next 
man  come  with  a  better  story,  let  a  superior 
orator  appear  a  few  days  later  and  there  is 
a  reaction.  The  emotion  subsides  or  even 
turns  the  other  way. 

"  On  the  other  hand,  feelings  built  on  be- 
liefs, beliefs  that  are  founded  on  profound 
convictions,  and  convictions  dug  deep  into  the 
rock  of  fundamental  fact  —  these  are  not 
swayed  and  stirred  like  waves  in  a  storm. 
Not  an  appeal  to  emotionalism,  but  an  appeal 
to  the  emotions  through  conviction  by  state- 
ment of  facts  secures  true  converts,  converts 
who  when  once  convinced  remain  convinced." 

We  need  all  that  the  Christian  Church  can 
do  for  us  to  keep  our  ideals  unsullied  and  un- 


the  Church  and  the  War  6i 

confused,  to  make  us  penitent  for  our  own 
sins  and  to  win  us  the  strength  of  those  who 
have  sought  God's  forgiveness,  to  hold  be- 
fore us  and  to  impose  upon  us  the  enduring 
and  universal  principles  to  which  we  must  be 
true  in  our  own  spirit  and  in  all  our  acts  if 
we  are  to  make  those  principles  prevail  in  the 
world.  I  mean  the  principles  of  love  and 
service  and  freedom,  of  a  righteous  social 
and  economic  order,  of  just  human  relation- 
ships in  the  state  and  among  the  nations.  If 
the  Church  has  no  discernment  of  these  prin- 
ciples or  no  courage  to  utter  them  we  can  do 
without  it.  If  it  does  discern  them  and  is  not 
afraid  to  declare  them,  the  world  is  ready  as 
it  never  was  before  to  hear  its  voice. 

There  is  one  thing  more  to  say.  It  is  said 
in  a  recent  letter  from  a  friend  on  the  other 
side.  "  The  Church  here,"  he  wTites,  "  is  in 
the  midst  of  a  vast  and  terrifying  problem. 
The  stage  has  long  since  gotten  beyond  the 
control  of  men.  If  I  were  not  a  Christian  I 
would  say  that  all  is  lost."  Our  moral  duty 
in  this  war  is  clear,  but  we  can  never  do  it 
except  by  the  power  of  God  living  in  the 
Risen  Lord.  Our  need  has  got  beyond  the 
power  of  man.  No  human  minds  or  wills 
are  adequate  for  this  work  of  tearing  down 
an  old  world  and  building  up  a  new.  It  can- 
not be  done  by  war  alone.     The  war  itself 


62  The  Christian  Man, 

even  cannot  accomplish  the  work  which  Is 
allotted  to  It  In  God's  will,  unsupplemented 
by  new  Ideals,  new  purposes,  new  conditions, 
new  characters,  a  new  life  in  men  and  nations. 
And  that  new  life  is  available  In  one  place 
alone,  that  Is  in  God  in  Christ.  To  believe 
this  and  to  try  to  live  by  this  belief  is  the  high- 
est loyalty.  It  is  the  divine  spring  of  the 
only  national  loyalty  that  can  meet  every 
strain  and  fulfill  every  task.  Is  the  Church 
ready  to  pay  the  price  of  such  loyalty  In  the 
love  and  purity  and  justice  of  its  moral  life  in 
order  that  It  may  be  the  light  of  the  nation  In 
these  days  of  darkness,  the  soul  of  the  nation 
in  these  days  of  need? 


Ill 

THE  WORLD  PROBLEM  AND  CHRISTIANITY 

The  world  problem  naturally  shapes  itself 
for  us  to-day  as  the  problem  of  the  world 
war,  in  which  Germany  and  her  three  allies 
are  arrayed  against  almost  all  the  rest  of 
mankind.  And  in  truth  the  war  does  reach 
in  its  influence  and  make  that  influence  con- 
sciously felt  to  the  remotest  corners  of  the 
earth.  There  are  few  regions  where  life  in 
its  most  practical  and  pressing  needs  has  not 
seen  the  consequences  of  the  derangement  of 
exchange  and  of  the  processes  of  trade  and 
industry  and  the  upheaval  of  humanity  occa- 
sioned by  the  war.  Railroads  have  stopped 
in  the  heart  of  the  jungle  because  there  were 
no  engineers  or  materials  to  complete  them. 
Children  have  starved  in  unknown  villages 
for  want  of  food  which  the  war  has  delayed 
or  consumed  or  left  unproduced.  The  most 
isolated  farmer  in  our  own  land,  the  tribes  in 
inland  Africa,  country  folk  in  far  interior 
China,  and  the  miners  underground  have 
alike  been  involved.  The  Idea  of  a  divided 
63 


64  The  Christian  Man, 

human  Interest  Is  gone  forever.  We  know 
that  for  good  or  for  ill  the  world  Is  one  and 
that  It  must  live  a  common  life.  All  that 
happens  is  of  significance  to  all  who  live. 

And  the  Issues  which  are  at  stake  In  the 
war  are  of  concern  to  all  humanity. 
Whether  power  or  service  shall  be  the  domi- 
nant principle  of  national  life,  whether  the 
will  to  power  Is  self-justifying  and  exempt 
from  the  law  of  righteousness  and  love  or 
must  be  subdued  to  duty  and  brotherhood, 
whether  all  men  are  to  be  free  to  govern  their 
states  or  whether  a  few  men  are  to  govern  all 
men  through  the  state,  whether  or  not  democ- 
racy Is  to  be  tolerated  in  the  earth  —  these 
are  questions  in  whose  answers  through  this 
war  every  man  in  the  world  and  all  the  men 
who  are  to  come  after  us  are  concerned. 

But  while  the  war  Is  evidence  of  the  unity 
and  magnitude  of  the  world  problem  It  is 
not  the  whole  world  problem.  This  prob- 
lem was  all  here  before  the  war  began.  It 
will  be  here  when  the  war  Is  over.  It  will  be 
modified.  We  hope  that  some  elements  of 
it  will  have  disappeared.  But  it  remains  to 
be  seen  how  much  war  will  have  done  to  alter 
the  fundamental  qualities.  War  has  its  own 
alchemy  and,  as  we  know  from  our  national 
history,  there  are  some  massive  and  perma- 
nent effects  which  it  can  produce.     It  can  put 


the  Church  and  the  War  65 

an  end  to  some  social  and  political  principles. 
It  can  establish  against  resistance  some  con- 
trary principles.  But  in  the  main  the  work 
of  war  is  structural  and  not  organic,  and 
when  this  war  has  been  won  we  shall  find  our- 
selves face  to  face  with  the  old  and  ever  new 
problems  of  life  and  sin.  Human  nature  will 
be  what  it  is.  We  shall  have  cleared  the 
ground  of  some  noxious  growths  and  some 
intolerable  barriers  to  true  human  progress. 
Human  institutions  will  have  been  given  an 
upward  lift  in  the  spiral  of  history.  But 
how  different  will  man  be? 

And  even  now  while  the  war  is  in  progress 
it  is  not  the  whole  of  human  life.  It  touches 
all  things,  but  it  does  not  hall  the  movement 
of  forces  which  will  affect  the  whole  future 
for  us  and  for  other  nations  and  to  which 
heed  must  be  given  now.  It  is  said  some- 
times that  the  war  is  like  a  house  afire  and 
that  all  the  owner's  attention  must  be  given 
to  that  fire.  But  suppose  he  owns  several 
houses  and  while  he  is  absorbed  in  saving  one, 
incendiaries  are  kindling  fires  in  the  others. 
Our  only  relations  are  not  with  our  allies  in 
peace  and  our  enemies  in  war.  We  have  now 
relations  with  the  Far  East  and  with  Latin 
America  which  must  be  dealt  with  in  terms 
of  long  time.  And  within  America  subtle 
changes   are   taking  place.     Great   interests 


66  The  Christian  Man, 

are  playing  their  hands  with  consummate  skill 
behind  the  unity  of  our  national  movement 
In  the  war.  They  are  thinking  forward  and 
Improving  every  opportunity  to  prepare  the 
way  for  what  they  want  when  the  war  is 
done.  Social  and  economic  changes  of  the 
deepest  meaning  are  going  on.  Are  they  to 
be  left  to  chance  or  Is  thought  to  be  spent 
upon  their  wise  direction? 

No  episode  or  epoch  In  history  Is  detach- 
able, to  be  separated  like  a  compartment. 
Every  stage  grows  organically  out  of  what 
preceded  It  and  leads  on  organically  to  what 
comes  after.  In  our  effort  to  think  of  the 
world  problem  clearly  in  order  to  understand 
It  and  determine  our  duty  regarding  It  we 
have  to  make  the  effort  to  Isolate  It  and  to 
separate  its  elements,  but  we  need  to  remind 
ourselves  that  this  cannot  really  be  done,  that 
life  and  history  are  an  organic  whole,  a  great 
web  of  tissues,  causes  and  consequences, 
forces  and  effects  inextricably  interlaced. 
What  we  are  living  through  now  is  the  fruit- 
age of  the  long  past  and  we  are  sowing  to- 
day for  our  children's  reaping  to-morrow. 

In  this  view,  if  men  do  not  prepare  In  ad- 
vance for  the  solution  of  their  problems  it  Is 
too  late  to  prepare  when  the  time  for  the 
solution  arrives.  The  forces  of  good  which 
are  to  cope  with  forces  of  evil  must  be  devel- 


the  Church  and  the  War  67 

oped  contemporaneously  with  them.  This  is 
the  comfort  of  our  faith  in  God.  We  be- 
heve  that  in  our  national  life  in  the  past  and 
to-day,  and  in  the  life  of  all  the  world,  God 
prepares  against  all  human  need  and  the  de- 
mand of  every  human  problem  the  supply  of 
His  wisdom  and  strength. 

As  we  look  around  us  to-day  and  behind 
and  before,  can  we  discern  the  outlines  of  the 
great  world  problem  which  must  be  worked 
through  and  can  we  find  the  forces  which  are 
adequate  for  its  solution?  This  is  not  mere 
wasteful  speculation  at  this  time.  We  shall 
find  that  we  need  to  carry  us  through  this  war 
all  the  inspiration  and  deep  resolves  which 
great  aims  and  ends  can  give.  One  of  our 
dangers  is  that  if  the  war  lasts  long  and  our 
idealisms  fade  and  we  despair  of  accomplish- 
ing the  results  for  which  we  went  into  the 
war,  if  behind  the  armies  men  begin  to  talk  of 
our  duty  to  develop  and  perpetuate  among 
ourselves  the  very  things  which  brought  on 
the  war  and  which  have  crushed  the  nations 
—  that  then  the  men  in  the  armies  will  begin 
to  say:  "What  Is  the  use?  Even  If  we 
win,  we  fail.  Let  us  stop  now."  The  only 
way  to  meet  that  danger  Is  to  keep  clear  and 
bright  before  men's  eyes  the  hope  of  a  new 
and  different  world  worth  any  sacrifice. 
Motives  drawn  from  the  past  will  decay  and 


y 


68  The  Christian  Man, 

die.  The-wlll-that-cannot-be-broken  to  make 
right  prevail  must  be  fed  from  hope  and  faith 
In  a  new  and  better  day.  Our  Lord  Himself 
endured  for  the  joy  which  was  set  before 
Him.  If  the  day  after  the  war  Is  to  be  like 
the  day  before  or  worse,  what,  men  will  ask, 
was  the  use  of  It  all?  Well,  It  Is  not  to  be 
the  same  day.  But  In  order  that  It  may  not 
be  we  need  to  try  to  see  what  the  old  and  long 
continuing  elements  of  the  world  problem  are 
and  to  find  the  forces  which  can  contend  with 
them. 

One  element  In  the  world  problem  has  been 
and  will  continue  to  be  the  Imperfect  develop- 
ment of  democracy.  We  believe  in  democ- 
racy and  our  belief  has  a  religious  basis. 
The  German  political  theory  has  rejected  It 
and  maintained  Instead  a  monarchical  Ideal 
with  a  definite  religious  and  theocratic  char- 
acter. 

"  It  is  not  at  first  apparent  what  necessary  con- 
nection there  is  between  monarchical  government 
and  Christian  faith.  For  Bismarck  they  were  ever 
inseparably  bound  together;  nothing  but  religious 
belief  would  have  reconciled  him  to  a  form  of  gov- 
ernment so  repugnant  to  natural  human  reason. 
'  If  I  were  not  a  Christian,  I  would  be  a  Repub- 
lican,' he  said  many  years  later;  in  Christianity  he 
found  the  only  support  against  revolution  and  so- 
ciahsm.     He  was  not  the  man  to  be  beguiled  by 


the  Church  and  the  War  69 

romantic  sentiment;  he  was  not  a  courtier  to  be 
blinded  by  the  pomp  and  ceremony  of  royalty;  he 
was  too  stubborn  and  independent  to  acquiesce  in 
the  arbitrary  rule  of  a  single  man.  He  could  only 
obey  the  king  if  the  king  himself  held  his  authority 
as  the  representative  of  a  higher  power.  Bismarck 
was  accustomed  to  follow  out  his  thought  to  its 
conclusions.  To  whom  did  the  King  owe  his 
power?  There  was  only  one  alternative:  to  the 
people  or  to  God.  If  to  the  people,  then  it  was  a 
mere  question  of  convenience  whether  the  monarchy 
were  continued  in  form ;  there  was  little  to  choose 
between  a  constitutional  monarchy  where  the  king 
was  appointed  by  the  people  and  controlled  by  Par- 
liament, and  an  avowed  republic.  This  was  the 
principle  held  by  nearly  all  his  contemporaries.  He 
deliberately  rejected  it.  He  did  not  hold  that  the 
voice  of  the  people  was  the  voice  of  God.  This  be- 
lief did  not  satisfy  his  moral  sense ;  it  seemed  in  pub- 
lic life  to  leave  all  to  interest  and  ambition  and  noth- 
ing to  duty.  It  did  not  satisfy  his  critical  intellect; 
the  word  '  people  '  was  to  him  a  vague  idea.  The 
service  of  the  people  or  of  the  King  by  the  Grace  of 
God,  this  was  the  struggle  which  was  soon  to  be 
fought  out. 

*'  It  is  this  conception  of  government  which  un- 
derlies a  speech  which  Bismarck  addressed  to  the 
Prussian  Chamber  in  1848.  *  The  strife  of  princi- 
ples w^hich  during  this  year  has  shattered  Europe  to 
its  foundations  is  one  in  which  no  compromise  is 
possible.  They  rest  on  opposite  bases.  The  one 
draws  its  law  from  what  is  called  the  will  of  the 
people,    in    truth,    however,    from    the    law   of    th^ 


70  The  Christian  Man, 

strongest  on  the  barricades.  The  other  rests  on 
authority  created  by  God,  an  authority  by  the  grace 
of  God,  and  seeks  its  development  in  organic  connec- 
tion with  the  existing  and  constitutional  legal  status. 
.  .  .  The  decision  on  these  principles  will  come  not 
by  Parliamentary  debate,  not  by  majorities  of  eleven 
votes;  sooner  or  later  the  God  who  directs  the  bat- 
tle will  cast  his  iron  dice.'  ( Headlam,  "  Bismarck," 
PP-  31-32,  53,  quoted  by  Curtis,  "The  Common- 
wealth of  Nations,"  p.  85-86.) 

This  deliberate  rejection  of  democracy  was 
the  perpetuation  of  the  political  principle  of 
the  "  Holy  Alliance."  The  first  article  of 
the  secret  treaty  signed  at  Verona  November 
22,  1822,  by  the  parties  to  the  Alliance  read: 

"  The  high  contracting  powers,  being  convinced 
that  the  system  of  representative  government  is 
equally  as  incompatible  with  the  monarchical  princi- 
ples as  the  maxim  of  the  sovereignty  of  the  people 
with  the  divine  right,  engage  mutually,  in  the  most 
solemn  manner,  to  use  all  their  efforts  to  put  an  end 
to  the  system  of  representative  governments,  in  what- 
ever country  it  may  exist  in  Europe,  and  to  prevent 
its  being  introduced  in  those  countries  where  it  is 
not  yet  known."  (Quoted  by  Curtis,  "The  Com- 
monwealth of  Nations,"  p.  87.) 

Here,  In  the  Interest  of  a  religious  theory 
of  government,  democracy  Is  rejected.  If  he 
had  not  been  a  Christian,  Bismarck  might 
have  believed  In  democracy!  We  believe  In 
democracy  because  we  are  Christians.     We 


the  Church  and  the  War  71 

have  the  Christian  faith  in  man,  in  equality 
of  opportunity  and  of  privilege,  in  God's 
guidance  of  society  and  in  the  accessibility 
of  the  common  man  to  the  same  divine  direc- 
tion which  is  available  for  a  king.  There  is 
no  more  divine  right  behind  a  king  than  there 
is  behind  a  carpenter  or  coal  miner  or  brick- 
layer, and  the  massed  conscience  and  convic- 
tion of  many  common  men  honestly  seeking 
their  onward  way  we  trust  more  than  the  will 
and  wisdom  of  any  king.  And  we  believe 
that  even  if  the  king  were  right  and  the  mass 
of  common  men  wrong,  it  would  be  better  for 
the  world  to  let  the  common  men  govern 
themselves.  It  may  be  a  poorer  govern- 
ment, but  it  will  be  a  better  people.  We  be- 
lieve In  an  imperfect  democracy  as  better 
than  any  alternative,  no  matter  what  it  may 
be. 

But  the  problem  is  to  perfect  our  democ- 
racy. It  is  far  from  perfect  now.  Nation- 
ally and  internationally  it  is  inefficient.  We 
have  the  advantage  of  its  freedom  of  move- 
ment, its  fluid  adaptiveness,  its  hopefulness. 
But  we  have  the  disadvantage  of  its  lack  of 
discipline  and  coordination,  its  fickleness.  Its 
suspicion  and  distrustfulness.  We  count  the 
gains  greater  than  the  losses,  but  we  cannot 
figure  out  yet  from  our  balance  sheet  any 
national  or  international  millennium. 


y 


72  The  Christian  Man, 

We  are  accustomed  also  to  construe  our 
democracy  in  too  narrow  terms.  Who  con- 
stitute the  people  ?  It  is  not  simply  the  adult 
male  citizens,  nor  all  the  contemporaneous 
generation.  The  dead  live  in  us,  and  also 
the  unborn,  and  they  both  have  rights.  The 
past  and  the  future  are  our  true  environment 
in  history.  Loyalty  in  a  democracy  too  often 
forgets  to  look  behind  and  before,  and  pays 
the  penalty  in  the  inefficiency  always  due  to 
an  organism's  imperfect  relation  to  its  envi- 
ronment. 

Our  democracy  Is  deficient  still  In  general 
economic  justice.  For  a  generation  our  life 
has  been  a  long  story  of  conflict  between 
classes  and  especially  between  the  classes 
crudely  called  "  capital  "  and  ''  labor.''  And 
yet  the  great  majority  of  us  who  have  had  to 
bear  the  brunt  and  pay  the  cost  have  not 
really  been  counted  in  either  party.  The 
whole  democracy  has  been  involved  in  a 
struggle  between  two  small  minority  sections. 

International  democracy  has  been  unequal 
to  the  forces  which  have  assailed  it.  In  the 
summer  of  19 14  the  great  masses  of  common 
men  in  the  European  nations  cherished  no  ill 
will,  nation  against  nation.  Their  thoughts 
were  friendly  human  thoughts  and  they  de- 
sired only  to  live  at  peace  in  their  own  homes 
and  to  go  about  their  own  tasks.     But  inter- 


the  Church  and  the  War 

ests  of  dynasties,  which  did  not  believe  in  de- 
mocracies, manipulating  the  compulsions  of 
corporate  national  life  and  working  with 
weapons  of  secret  diplomacy  and  of  sinister 
influence  which  democracy  had  not  yet 
wrenched  from  their  hands,  crushed  into  ruins 
the  national  democratic  sentiments  and 
plunged  the  world  into  a  war  which  it  ab- 
horred. Crude  and  groping  as  it  was,  the 
democracy  which  the  world  had  slowly 
wrought  out  would  never  have  made  such  a 
mess  of  the  earth.  Other  forces  duped  it. 
It  is  resolved  now  to  take  things  in  its  own 
hands  and  to  make  safe  room  for  its  free  de- 
velopment. But  can  it  change  and  recreate 
itself?  Does  it  know  what  it  ought  to  be? 
Are  its  purposes  right  ?  Is  it  willing  to  make 
all  needful  sacrifices?  Even  if  its  heart  is 
open  to  better  things  has  it  a  mind  to  discern 
them  and  a  will  to  replace  them  when  dis- 
cerned by  still  better  things  that  will  then  be 
disclosed?  If  democracy  is  to  be  the  prin- 
ciple of  society,  it  must  be  a  wholesome  and 
progressive  and  righteous  democracy. 

A  second  element  in  the  world  problem  in 
the  past,  from  which  we  are  trying  to  escape 
and  from  which  escape  is  appallingly  diflfi- 
cult,  is  the  claim  of  national  trusteeship  to  be 
above  the  moral  law.  This  is  an  old,  old 
claim.     There  was  a  time  when  it  was  set  up 


74  The  Christian  Man, 

as  a  valid  principle  for  smaller  units  than 
nationalities.  Great  feudal  lords  acted  upon 
it  until  at  last  they  were  tamed  by  the  move- 
ment of  time  and  the  moral  law  came  to  be 
supreme  In  relations  between  class  and  class 
and  man  and  man  within  the  modern  state. 
The  law  was  violated  often  enough,  but  Its 
obligation  was  acknowledged  and  the  ac- 
knowledgment has  been  working  out  Its  own 
enlarging  enforcement.  But  the  state  was 
still  held  as  a  super-moral  thing  and  this 
theory  is  one  of  the  great  Issues  of  the  pres- 
ent struggle. 

In  the  very  struggle  Itself  the  danger  Is 
that  men  may  accept  the  theory  In  order  to 
defeat  It.  And  one  wonders  whether  If  one 
nation  allows  Itself  to  act  contrary  to  the 
moral  law  in  order  to  prevent  another  nation 
from  doing  so,  any  real  contribution  has  been 
made  to  human  progress.  There  are  some 
who  say  that  we  must  fight  with  whatever 
weapons  and  spirit  are  necessary  to  achieve 
the  end.  To  undo  our  foe  we  must  outdo 
him. 

'*  In  order  to  crush  this  monstrous  growth,*'  says 
an  English  preacher  whose  message  is  addressed  to 
his  day  with  singular  fearlessness  and  power,  "  what 
do  we  who  hate  it  have  to  do  ?  We  have  kept  our- 
selves free  from  the  more  violent  outrages  of  inter- 
national law,  and  we  believe  that  our  soldiers,  even 


the  Church  and  the  War  75 

if  they  were  let  free  in  the  flush  of  victory  upon 
German  soil,  would  never  repeat  the  story  of  Belgian 
atrocities.  But  we  do  find  that  to  crush  an  enemy 
in  war  one  does  have  to  consider  military  necessities 
before  ideal  principles.  Fortunately  we  have  a 
mighty  navy  which  is  able  to  exert  pressure  in  a 
quite  gentlemanly  way.  We  can  trust  the  chivalry, 
the  humanity,  the  unfailing  good  humor  of  our  men 
to  treat  the  enemy  when  wounded  or  prisoners,  with 
kindness  and  honor.  But  does  any  one  suppose  that 
in  the  frightful  struggles  of  a  bayonet  charge  all 
soldiers  do  not  have  to  put  off  the  civilized  gentle- 
man and  fight  like  devils?  The  tragedy  is  that  to 
crush  this  monstrous  manifestation  we  have  to  adopt 
much  the  same  methods  and  rely  upon  the  same  prim- 
itive passions.  Whoever  is  responsible  for  recalling 
these  things  to  life,  they  are  not  dead,  and  they  will 
not  be  the  quicker  extinguished  for  the  temporary 
license  that  has  had  to  be  granted  to  them. 

"  The  truth  is,  behind  the  European  man,  not  to 
mention  the  European  woman,  there  is  a  savage, 
and  if  we  are  going  to  prepare  for  wars  and  wage 
wars,  from  whatever  motive,  then  we  shall  want 
that  savage  kept  alive.  With  characteristic  frank- 
ness and  brutality  this  has  been  recognized  in  Ger- 
many. It  has  even  become  a  philosophy.  In  other 
countries,  and  notably  in  our  own,  we  do  not  discuss 
this  sort  of  thing.  Like  prostitution.  It  is  not  talked 
about  in  polite  circles,  but  the  safety  of  our  homes 
is  built  upon  it  all  the  same.  Germany  has  thrown 
over  the  restraints  of  sentimentalism  and  has  in 
greater  degree  than  other  nationalities  repudiated 
Christianity  as  inapplicable  to  State  affairs  and  In- 


The  Christian  Man, 

ternational  relationships.  Other  countries  have  not 
openly  admitted  this  to  be  necessary,  but  in  practice 
we  all  have  to  follow  much  the  same  course." 
(Orchard,  "  The  Outlook  for  Religion,"  p.  6  f.) 

In  our  Inexperience  and  unsaddened  ideal- 
ism we  do  not  and  will  not  believe  this.  We 
had  a  great  war  once,  the  greatest  of  all  wars 
until  this  chaos  fell,  and  in  that  war  soldiers 
and  armies  and  commanders,  North  and 
South,  bore  themselves  as  Christian  men.  It 
was  war  and  it  had  the  horrors  of  war,  death 
and  havoc  and  destruction.  But  honor  was 
alive  and  chivalry.  And  we  still  believe, 
fresh  and  untried  as  we  are  In  this  war,  that 
we  can  keep  the  spirit  of  the  days  of  old. 
And  we  believe  It  firmly  In  the  case  of  the 
nation.  The  Idealistic  moral  aims  and  the 
broad  principles  of  political  justice  and  the 
purposes  of  sincere  world  service  which  the 
President  has  stated  again  and  again  are  ac- 
cepted by  the  nation.  H  We  believe  that  we 
are  acting  as  a  Christian  nation  and  in  a 
Christian  spirit.  We  are  laying  down  our 
lives  for  our  brethren.  If  we  are  not  obey- 
ing as  a  nation  the  same  moral  law  which 
holds  between  man  and  man  we  are  self- 
deceived.  And  If  any  one  among  ourselves 
or  among  our  allies  Is  making  the  war  a  cloak 
for  selfish  or  sinister  purposes  or,  in  carrying 


the  Church  and  the  War  77 

on  the  war,  is  surrendering  the  principles 
which  we  think  we  are  defending,  he  is  de- 
ceiving us  and  betraying  the  good  faith  of 
America.  \\ 

It  is  hard  always  for  the  true  elements  and 
ideals  of  a  nation  to  control  the  nation's  pol- 
icy. There  have  been  voices  in  our  own  land 
which  have  proclaimed  the  exemption  of  the 
nation  from  the  law  of  absolute  righteousness, 
and  influential  voices  to-day  advocate  the 
frank  recognition  of  the  right  of  the  nation  to 
consider  first  not  any  sentiment  of  the  moral 
law,  but  the  supposed  right  of  its  self-in- 
terest. J^fc^ 

"  All  modern  wars  between  nations,"  writes  ^'  An 
American  Jurist,"  *'  are  in  the  last  analysis  founded 
on  national  interest  and  national  honor^whichLare: 
almost  identical  terms.  Other  causes  may  be  as- 
signedr"By'  polfticaT  parties,  and  in  popular  govern- 
ments other  causes  are  often  necessarily  assigned 
when  the  citizenship  is  indifferent  to  the  national 
honor  or  oblivious  of  the  urgency  of  the  paramount 
national  interest.  .  .  .  That  America  was  justified 
in  her  declaration  of  war  for  many  reasons  not  stated 
by  the  President,  the  world,  in  the  end,  will  con- 
cede. Her  imperiled  national  interests  alone  af- 
forded ample  justification  for  such  a  declaration. 
But  in  pragmatic  England  and  in  practical  Amer- 
ica political  and  national  movements  are  singularly 
promoted  by  sentimental  considerations,  sometimes 
pertinent,  at  others  irrevelant,  but  always  skillfully 


78  The  Christian  Man, 

manipulated  by  those  more  discerning  public  men 
who  have  closer  at  heart  the  national  interests  and 
well-being,  and  who  themselves  need  no  other  in- 
centive besides  the  national  interests  for  even  such 
an  extreme  action  as  public  war. 

"  For  the  honor  of  humanity  it  is  sad  to  have  to 
admit  that  sentiment  of  itself  is  never  a  valid  reason 
of  state  for  extreme  national  measures.  ...  It  is 
the  national  interest  and  honor  alone  which,  in  the 
end,  control  the  external  actions  of  a  state.  In  any 
discussion  of  the  problems  involved  in  this  war  senti- 
ment, therefore,  should  be  allowed  to  play  only  a 
minor  part.  Alliances  between  nations  are  not  de- 
termined by  considerations  of  sentiment.  Common 
interests  and  advantages  for  the  time  being  afford 
the  sufficient  inducement  for  either  defensive  or  of- 
fensive alliances  of  nations."  (The  New  York 
Tijnes,  January  2,   191 8.) 

But  it  is  part  of  our  ancient  blindness  to 
assume  that  national  interests  must  conflict. 
If  we  regard  the  moral  law  as  not  binding  be- 
tween states  and  seek  to  build  a  world  of 
antagonistic  interests  we  shall  indeed  have 
perpetual  strife.  But  we  are  sick  of  this  idea 
and  are  ready  for  another  long  step  onward 
In  the  way  of  human  progress.  We  have  our 
opportunity  through  the  war  to  effect  an  or- 
ganization of  the  nations  which  should  bring 
them  under  such  a  just  and  mutually  helpful 
order  as  binds  In  closer  bonds  the  widely 
varied  Interests  of  our  American  Union. 


the  Church  and  the  War  79 

"  We  believe,"  says  the  Report  on  Reconstruction 
of  the  Sub-Committee  of  the  British  Labor  Party, 
"  that  nations  are  in  no  way  damaged  by  each  other's 
economic  prosperity  or  commercial  progress;  but, 
on  the  contrary,  that  they  are  actually  themselves 
mutually  enriched  thereby.  We  would  therefore 
put  an  end  to  the  old  entanglements  and  mystifica- 
tions of  secret  diplomacy  and  the  formation  of 
leagues  against  leagues.  We  stand  for  the  immedi- 
ate establishment,  actually  as  a  part  of  the  treaty 
of  peace  with  which  the  present  war  will  end,  of  a 
universal  league  or  society  of  nations,  a  superna- 
tional  authority,  with  an  international  high  court  to 
try  all  justiciable  issues  between  nations;  an  inter- 
national legislature  to  enact  such  common  laws  as 
can  be  mutually  agreed  upon,  and  an  international 
council  of  mediation  to  endeavor  to  settle  without 
ultimate  conflict  even  those  disputes  which  are  not 
justiciable.  We  would  have  all  the  nations  of  the 
world  most  solemnly  undertake  and  promise  to  make 
common  cause  against  any  one  of  them  that  broke 
away  from  this  fundamental  agreement.  The  world 
has  suffered  too  much  from  war  for  the  Labor  party 
to  have  any  other  policy  than  that  of  lasting  peace." 
^The  New  Republic,  February  16,  1918.) 

And  this  is  not  the  dream  of  Christian  Ideal- 
ists and  labor  visionaries.  It  Is  the  word  of 
the  men  who  saw  all  that  brought  on  the  war, 
who  saw  Its  full  Inward  meaning,  and  who 
cannot  bear  the  thought  of  the  transmission 
of  the  present  world  order  as  a  curse  to  our 
children. 


8o  The  Christian  Man, 

"  Permanent  peace,"  says  Viscount  Grey,  "  has 
hitherto  been  an  ideal;  will  a  League  of  Nations  or 
some  concrete  proposal  of  that  kind  become  prac- 
ticable after  this  war?  Will  the  ideal  come  within 
the  limits  of  practical,  effective  politics?  .  .  .  My 
own  hope  and  belief  is  that  it  will.  This  war  will 
bring  about  a  new  order  of  things.  In  domestic  af- 
fairs old  questions  will  be  swept  off  the  board  of 
politics  by  new  problems  and  new  questions,  to 
which  many  of  the  old  phrases,  the  old  formulas 
and  previous  points  of  view  will  not  be  applicable, 
and  new  men  will  perhaps  be  needed  to  solve  the  new 
problems.  And  in  international  politics  new  ideas 
may  prevail,  and  things  hitherto  impossible  may  be- 
come possible.  How  much  becomes  possible  will 
depend  upon  the  change  effected  by  the  experience 
of  this  war,  not  so  much  in  men's  heads  as  in  their 
hearts  and  feelings,  and  this  we  shall  not  know  fully 
till  the  millions  of  men  who  have  fought  at  the  front 
are  settled  at  home  again  and  take  their  places  in 
civil  and  political  life  in  free  democracies.  ...  If 
as  a  result  of  this  war  men  of  all  nations  will  desire 
in  future  to  stamp  out  the  first  sign  of  war  as  they 
would  a  forest  fire  or  the  plague,  then  the  world  may 
have  peace  and  a  security  that  it  has  never  yet 
known.  If  that  is  not  the  result,  then  the  lot  of 
mankind  in  this  epoch  of  its  history  will  be  more 
desperate  than  in  the  darkest  and  most  cruel  ages, 
for  civilized  nations  will  prepare  and  perfect  the 
destructive  inventions  of  science,  and  these  will  be 
used  to  the  point  of  mutual  extermination.  Militar- 
ism and  civilization  are  now  incompatible,  and  na- 
tions must  attain  some  greater  measure  of  interna- 


the  Church  and  the  War  8 1 

tional  self-control  than  has  previously  been  thought 
possible  if  civilization  is  to  progress  or  even  to  be 
preserved."  {^International  Conciliation,  Novem- 
ber, 19 1 7.) 

The  nations  must  be  bound  to  the  moral 
law. 

A  third  element  in  the  world  problem  is  the  y- 
retarding  or  the  breaking  down  of  the  proc- 
esses  of  social  evolution  and  human  progress 
for  want  of  adequate  agents  to  carry  them 
forward.  A  case  can  be  made  out  for  theo- 
cratic government,  but  it  Is  Impracticable,  If 
for  no  other  reason,  because  no  human  agent 
can  stand  up  under  the  burden  of  theocratic 
responsibility.  And  although  democracy  dis- 
tributes the  burden  \^Idely,  the  Inadequacy  of 
those  on  whom  It  Is  laid  makes  Itself  felt  as 
surely  and  as  fatally.  We  have  not  failed  In 
the  past,  nor  are  we  falling  now  for  want  of 
Ideals.  Our  goals  stand  out  clearly.  We 
want  peace  and  justice,  equal  opportunity, 
*'  the  democratic  control  of  Industry,"  "  the 
surplus  wealth  for  the  common  good,"  and 
enough  else  which  it  Is  easy  to  describe.  But 
how  are  we  to  get  these  things?  There  are 
no  doubt  economic  and  political  processes  to 
be  thought  out  and  applied.  But  will  they 
give  them  to  us  ?  It  is  true  that  the  problems 
of  society  and  of  the  world  cannot  be  solved 


82  The  Christian  Man, 

by  good  will  alone.  But  neither  can  they  be 
solved  by  economic  or  legal  prescription. 
They  require  men  both  of  good  will  and  of 
intelligence,  equal  to  the  weight  of  the  move- 
ment they  must  carry  forward. 

The  acuteness  of  this  need  of  men  is  no- 
where more  clearly  seen  than  In  China  to-day. 
It  is  not  clearer  in  America  or  in  Europe. 
China  is  seeking  to  compass  in  one  generation 
the  experience  which  the  Western  nations 
have  spread  over  two  thousand  years. 
There  is  no  reason  why  China  should  not 
make  this  effort.  It  would  be  absurd  for  her 
to  set  out  to  travel  the  whole  road  over  which 
wc  have  come  as  slowly  as  we  have  traveled 
it.  If  she  should  try  to  do  so,  by  the  time 
she  had  caught  up  we  would  be  two  thousand 
years  more  ahead  or,  at  least,  apart.  But 
the  attempt  to  condense  all  this  experience,  to 
swing  a  race  through  such  immense  cycles  of 
change  in  a  single  generation,  is  enough  to 
make  even  the  oldest  nation  dizzy.  And  the 
effort  has  broken  down  in  one  place  and  been 
blocked  In  another,  not  for  any  want  of  good 
will,  or  clear  Ideals,  but  for  want  of  men. 
And  the  situation  is  even  more  tragic  with 
regard  to  the  women  of  Asia.  A  yet  more 
rapid  movement  is  sweeping  them  on.  It 
may  almost  be  said  that  they  have  double  the 
distance  to  travel  that  lies  before  the  men. 


the  Church  and  the  War  83 

Where  are  the  women  who  are  capable  of 
carrying  through  in  a  decade  or  two  such 
millennial  processes  of  transformation? 

And  this  problem  of  China  is  our  problem 
too.  We  know  in  part  what  kind  of  a  world 
ought  to  be  rebuilt  on  the  ruins  of  the  old. 
The  trouble  is  that  there  are  not  men  enough 
to  do  the  rebuilding.  The  new  order  re- 
quires a  new  man.  Saint  Brice,  caustically 
criticizing  President  Wilson's  address  before 
the  Senate  on  January  24,  19 17,  declared  in 
the  Paris  Journal: 

The  situation  would  appear  inextricable  if  we 
did  not  realize  how  the  pursuit  of  a  fixed  idea  may 
lead  astray.  Wilson  is  haunted  by  the  idea  of  in- 
augurating the  golden  age  of  universal  brotherhood. 
Naturally,  general  disarmament  is  the  basis  of  this 
system.  The  only  thing  lacking  for  the  realization 
of  this  admirable  conception  is  a  new  humanity. 
Does  Wilson  pretend  to  be  able  to  change  human- 
ity ?  " 

Human  progress  does  not  need  to  wait  for 
the  total  perfection  of  humanity.  We  have 
got  rid  of  many  evils  even  if  humanity  has 
not  as  yet  been  so  greatly  changed  and  we 
hope  that  we  can  get  rid  of  war  too  with 
humanity  as  it  is  or  as  it  is  going  to  be  after 
this  war.  But  Saint  Brice's  demand  is  just. 
The  President  would  doubtless  join  him  in  it. 


84  The  Christian  Man, 

Man  himself  is  still  the  greatest  element  in 
his  own  problem.  And  if  we  want  him 
changed  after  the  war  we  must  get  him  to 
work  now  on  the  changes  that  are  necessary 
and  to  confront  him  to-day  with  the  condi- 
tions which  he  will  have  to  confront  when 
the  objects  of  the  war  have  been  attained  and 
with  which  he  will  be  able  to  deal  then  only 
if  he  has  seen  them  and  fitted  himself  for 
them  now. 

"  The  shallow  objection  that  a  nation  at  war  must 
not  think  about  the  object  of  the  war,  but  only  about 
the  waging  of  it,  will  be  far  from  a  nation  that  is 
at  war  only  to  establish  peace.  Nor  is  thought  about 
the  object  of  the  war  superfluous.  For  war  de- 
pends upon  prejudices  and  assumptions  which  are 
rooted  deep  in  the  minds  of  all  men  and  women. 
It  is  not  enough  to  wish  to  end  war.  We  must  root 
up  the  errors  that  foster  it.  And  that  requires  a 
process  of  intellectual  conversion  which,  if  it  is  to  be 
achieved  in  time,  must  be  achieved  even  while  the 
war  is  raging.  It  is  with  no  fear  that  this  book  may 
weaken  the  determination  of  the  reader  that  I  lay 
it  before  him.  It  is  in  the  hope  that  it  may  at  once 
strengthen  and  enlighten  him.  For,  though  the  war 
may  be  won  merely  by  arms,  the  peace  cannot.  The 
peace  can  only  be  won  by  thought  and  will."  (G. 
Lowes  Dickinson,  ''  The  Choice  Before  Us.") 

A  fourth  tenacious  and  evil  element  in  the 
v^      world  problem  is  racial  suspicion  and  inequal- 
ity.    The  contraction  of  the  world  has  in- 


the  Church  and  the  War  85 

creased  this  peril.  So  long  as  the  means  of 
communication  were  few  and  the  different 
races  occupied  separated  homes,  racial  prej- 
udice and  friction  were  of  small  consequence. 
There  was  irritation  here  and  there  along  the 
border  lines,  but  time  worked  out  tolerable 
adjustments  even  in  the  relations  of  subject 
Christian  nations  living  in  the  midst  of  Mo- 
hammedans. But  as  the  world  shrank 
through  the  application  of  steam  and  elec- 
tricity to  the  processes  of  inter-communica- 
tion, the  danger  of  race  pride  and  injustice 
became  ever  greater  and  greater.  The 
emancipation  and  rapid  Increase  of  the  negro 
in  the  United  States  produced  what  Morley 
in  his  "  Recollections  "  calls  the  hardest  of  all 
the  "  Insoluble  problems  "  of  great  states 
(Morley,  "  Recollections,"  Vol.  II,  p.  336 
f.),  but  which  has  yet  been  handled  with  less 
friction  than  any  other  so  great  problem  any- 
where. Across  a  hundred  racial  chasms  the 
last  generation  has  witnessed  the  Interplay  of 
these  passions  of  misunderstanding  and  dis- 
trust. 

The  old  conceptions  of  the  inevitable  hos- 
tility of  trade,  of  commercial  competition  as 
Involving,  of  necessity,  disadvantage  on  one 
side  If  there  Is  to  be  advantage  on  the  other, 
of  the  impossibility  of  friendly  rivalry  or  of 
international  cooperation  intensify  this  peril 


86  The  Christian  Man, 

of  race  antagonism.  The  words  of  Con- 
gressman Mann  in  the  debate  on  the  Jones 
Bill  relating  to  our  tenure  of  the  Philippine 
Islands,  embodied  these  old  conceptions  and 
warned  us  of  what  those  who  honestly  hold 
these  views  believe  is  in  store  for  us.  "  I 
have  no  doubt,"  said  Mr.  Mann,  "  that  con- 
flict will  come  between  the  Far  East  and  the 
Far  West  across  the  Pacific  Ocean.  All 
which  is  taking  place  in  the  world,  the  logic 
of  the  history  of  the  human  race  up  to  now, 
teaches  us  that  the  avoidance  of  this  conflict 
is  impossible.  I  hope  it  will  be  only  a  com- 
mercial conflict.  I  hope  war  may  not  come, 
that  there  will  be  no  conflict  of  arms,  but  I 
have  little  faith  that  in  this  world  of  ours 
people  and  races  are  able  to  meet  in  competi- 
tion for  a  long  period  without  armed  conflict. 
A  fight  for  commercial  supremacy  leads  in  the 
end  to  a  fight  with  arms,  because  that  is  the 
final  arbiter  between  nations."  And  one  of 
our  newspapers  which  constantly  preaches 
race  suspicion  declares  emphatically,  "  The 
war  in  Europe,  hideous  as  it  is,  is  merely  a 
family  quarrel  compared  to  the  terrible  strug- 
gle that  will  some  day  be  fought  to  a  finish 
between  the  white  and  the  yellow  races  for 
the  domination  of  the  world.  .  .  .  The  only 
battles  which  count  are  the  battles  which 
saved  the  white  races  from  subjugation  by 


the  Church  and  the  War  87 

the  yellow  races,  and  the  only  thing  of  real 
importance  to-day  is  the  rescue  of  the  white 
races  from  conditions  which  make  their  sub- 
jugation by  the  yellow  races  possible.  .  .  . 
Is  it  not  time  that  the  white  nations  settled 
their  quarrels  among  themselves  and  made 
preparations  to  meet  their  one  real  danger, 
the  menace  to  Christianity,  to  Occidental 
standards  and  ideals,  to  the  white  man's  civ- 
ilization, which  the  constantly  growing  power 
and  aggression  of  the  yellow  races  contin- 
ually and  increasingly  threaten?  "  And  this 
same  paper  has  put  its  appeal  with  regard  to 
the  Japanese  especially  into  verse.  One 
stanza  and  the  chorus  will  suffice : 

"LOOK  OUT!  CALIFORNIA  — BEWARE! 

"  They  tell  us  that  Uncle  Sam 
Would  lie  down  like  a  lamb, 
But  he  doesn't  understand  the  situation. 
He  says  war  talk  must  cease 
While  he  feeds  the  dove  of  Peace, 
But  he  doesn't  know^  the  Peril  to  the  Nation. 
But  something's  going  to  happen 
That  will  shake  things  up,  perhaps, 
If  we  don't  start  to  clean  out  the  Japs  ! 

They  lurk  upon  thy  shores,  California ! 
They  watch  behind  thy  doors,  California! 
They're  a  hundred  thousand  strong, 
And  they  won't  be  hiding  long; 


88  The  Christian  Man, 

There's  nothing  that  the  dastards  would  not  dare ! 
They  are  soldiers  to  a  man, 
With  the  schemes  of  old  Japan  ! 
Look  out !     California !     Beware !  " 

It  may  be  hoped  that  this  principle  of  de- 
liberate race  suspicion  and  injustice  will  not 
poison  and  control  our  whole  national  spirit 
or  be  allowed  to  shape  national  policies.  But 
there  have  been  times  before  In  our  history 
when  a  spirit  of  racial  unfairness  has  gained 
the  upperhand  of  the  day  and  of  the 
wholesome  good  intent  of  the  American 
people.  Abraham  Lincoln  and  General 
Grant  believed  that  it  had  done  so  in  the 
Mexican  War.  Our  own  country  has  the 
purest  and  most  honorable  history  of  diplo- 
matic relations,  of  treaty  making  and  of 
treaty  keeping  of  any  country  in  the  world, 
but  more  than  once  we  have  failed  in  our 
word.  Mr.  Taft  has  summed  up  the  record 
of  failures  in  the  case  of  China.  Bishop 
Whipple  tells  in  his  autobiography  of  the 
long  struggle.  In  which  he  was  one  of  the 
leaders,  for  justice  to  the  American  In- 
dian. Little  by  little  his  lands  were  taken 
from  him.  He  was  driven  westward  from 
the  East  and  eastward  from  the  West. 
Hemmed  In  by  the  encircling  and  ever-con- 
tracting lines  of  white  encroachment  his  hunt- 


the  Church  and  the  War  89 

ing-grounds  were  destroyed,  the  money  prom- 
ised him  was  squandered  before  it  reached 
him,  or,  if  it  reached  him,  was  made  an  occa- 
sion of  debauching  him,  his  manhood  was 
ruined  by  the  trade  in  hquor,  vices  of  which 
he  never  knew  were  introduced,  and  the  sol- 
emn treaties  made  with  him  by  the  govern- 
ment were  broken.  If  this  seems  now  long 
ago  and  if  we  believe  that  no  such  history 
could  be  repeated,  we  need  to  be  sure  that  we 
are  racially  fair  and  just  to  the  Latin-Ameri- 
can races  and  to  the  peoples  of  the  Far  East 
to-day.  We  shall  have  no  peace  and  rest  in 
a  world  where  the  gulfs  of  race  are  unbridged 
by  sympathy  and  confidence  and  generosity 
and  justice. 

A  fifth  element  of  the  world  problem  is  the 
resistance  of  national  individualism  to  the 
spirit  of  world  brotherhood  and  to  the  com- 
mon interest  of  humanity.  Human  history 
Is  coming  about  now  in  one  of  its  great  cycles. 
In  the  Roman  Empire  men  had  nearly  real- 
ized a  world  state  and  the  Roman  peace  lay 
for  centuries  upon  the  Mediterranean  world. 
But  the  Roman  Empire  broke  down.  The 
great  adventurers  expanded  the  ranges  of  the 
world.  New  states  came  Into  being.  For 
five  hundred  years  men  were  engrossed  In 
developing  the  Ideas  and  Institutions  of  na- 
tionalism.    And  "ever  since  the  world-state 


90  The  Christian  Man, 

ideals  of  the  Middle  Ages  were  left  behind, 
this  principle  has  been  the  touchstone  of  true 
statesmanship.  The  reputation  of  a  states- 
man, as  well  as  his  permanent  influence  on 
human  affairs,  depends  on  his  power  to  un- 
derstand and  aid  the  historical  evolution, 
from  out  the  mediaeval  chaos,  of  strong  na- 
tional states.  Genius  could  not  countervail 
this  law  of  development.  Even  Napoleon 
was  unsuccessful  whenever  his  policy  opposed 
the  innate  strength  of  nationalism.  .  .  .  The 
cosmopolitanism  of  the  Middle  Ages  and  of 
the  Renaissance,  the  dreams  of  world  unity, 
have  been  replaced  by  a  set  of  narrower  na- 
tional Ideals  concerning  customs,  laws,  litera- 
ture, and  art, —  by  a  community  of  independ- 
ent states,  each  striving  to  realize  to  the  full- 
est its  individual  aptitudes  and  characteristics. 
It  is  not  necessary  to  infer  from  this  a  uni- 
versal reign  of  chauvinism.  The  idea  of  the 
general  solidarity  of  mankind  Is  still  strong 
enough  to  restrain  national  action  In  some 
measure."  (Reinsch,  "  World  Politics,"  pp. 
1-6.)  Professor  Reinsch  wrote  these  words 
in  brighter  and  more  hopeful  days  when  no 
men  believed,  except  those  who  were  prepar- 
ing it,  that  such  a  day  of  self-wrought  doom 
could  fall  upon  mankind  as  we  must  live 
through  now.     We  rejoice  in  all  the  gains  of 


the  Church  and  the  War  91 

this  national  differentiation  in  the  past  and 
we  do  not  wish  to  lose  them  but  we  are  re- 
solved to  find  some  way  of  retaining  them 
and  yet  of  saving  a  world  community  too. 
If  this  is  to  be  done  we  see  now  that  two 
things  are  essential.  One  is  a  new  spirit  of 
universalism.  We  may  call  it  by  many 
names.  But  however  we  name  it  —  brother- 
hood, the  spirit  of  humanity,  international- 
ism  we  have  to  come  to  it  and  to  accept 

it  as  the  new  principle  of  human  government 
and  relationships.  The  other  necessity  is 
some  instrumentality  of  international  asso- 
ciation by  which  the  gains  of  a  world  peace  m 
righteousness  may  be  won  and  held  without 
sacrifice  of  national  personality.  There  are 
multitudes  of  men  engaged  in  this  war  and 
ready  to  make  any  sacrifices  for  its  just  end- 
ing who  will  not  be  content  but  will  think 
their  sacrifice  in  some  part  vain  if  the  war  is 
not  followed  by  a  league  of  nations  which, 
even  though  it  be  in  the  simplest  form,  will 
constitute  the  beginning  of  our  international 
organization,  which  will  advance  disarma- 
ment, promote  arbitration,  secure  the  adjudi- 
cation of  difficulties,  and  prevent  war.  Hu- 
manity has  realized  that  if  one  of  Its  mem- 
bers suffers  all  must  suffer.  It  begins^  to  be 
resolved  that  if  it  must  bear  the  pains  of 


92  The  Christian  Man, 

unity  It  must  have  Its  benefits  too  and  must 
secure  them  by  the  agencies  which  are  neces- 
sary. 

These  are  some  of  the  long  continuing  ele- 
ments of  the  world  problem  which  must  be 
dealt  with  after  the  war  and  which  cannot 
be  postponed  to  be  dealt  with  then.  They 
must  be  dealt  with  now  also  and  the  war 
itself  cannot  deal  with  them  except  in  the 
way  of  clearing  away  hindrances.  As  the 
Archbishop  of  York  said  on  his  recent  visit 
to  New  York:  ''  War  in  itself  can  only  de- 
stroy not  build  up,  and  it  devolves  upon  the 
allied  nations  to  renew  themselves  and  pre- 
pare not  only  for  victory  in  the  war,  but  for 
the  greater  task  of  upbuilding  after  the  con- 
flict has  ended.  It  would  be  futile  to  destroy 
the  autocratic  menace  and  then  return  to  old 
conditions  if  that  were  physically  possible. 
The  new  spirit,  the  spirit  of  humanity,  of  co- 
operation, of  brotherhood,  Is  needed  If  the 
full  fruits  of  the  war  are  to  be  reaped  for  the 
good  of  mankind.  Nothing  less  will  make 
the  battling  of  to-day  worth  while."  (New 
York  Times,  March  7,  19 18.)  Some  crea- 
tive power  Is  necessary  to  deal  now  and  here- 
after with  the  ideas  and  forces  which  make 
up  the  world  problem  for  us. 

The  Christian  man  believes  that  Christian- 
ity Is  the  only  solution  of  the  problem,  not  a 


the  Church  and  the  War  93 

tame,  low-tension  Christianity,  but  a  root  and 
branch  type,  a  return  to  the  dynamic  reality 
of  the  faith  as  it  first  laid  hold  on  men's 
hearts  and  lives.  Such  Christianity  contains 
the  ideals  and  the  energies  without  which  we 
can  neither  see  the  right  path  nor  force  our 
way  onward  in  it.  ''  Surely  the  future  looks 
black  enough,"  says  Mr.  Watterson  in  his 
editorial  in  the  Louisville  Courier-Journal  on 
the  fiftieth  Christmas  in  its  history,  "  yet  it 
holds  a  hope,  a  single  hope.  One,  and  one 
power  only,  can  arrest  the  descent  and  save 
us.  That  is  the  Christian  religion.  De- 
mocracy is  but  a  side  issue.  The  paramount 
issue  underlying  the  issue  of  Democracy,  is 
the  religion  of  Christ,  and  Him  crucified;  the 
bedrock  of  civilization;  the  source  and  re- 
source of  all  that  is  worth  having  in  the  world 
that  is,  that  gives  promise  in  the  world  to 
come;  not  as  an  abstraction;  not  as  a  huddle 
of  sects  and  factions;  but  as  a  mighty  force 
and  principle  of  being.  ...  If  the  world  is 
to  be  saved  from  destruction  —  it  will  be 
saved  alone  by  the  Christian  religion."  In 
welcoming  the  Archbishop  of  York  Mr.  Root 
said  as  unequivocally  that  the  fundamental 
issue  is  Paganism  or  Christ.  And  as  Mr. 
Watterson  says  it  must  be  the  Christian  re- 
ligion in  its  reality.  And  that  reality  is  not 
a  religious  system,  it  is  a  personal  power. 


94  The  Christian  Man, 

It  is  Jesus  Christ.  "  I  am  the  Way,  the 
Truth  and  the  Life." 

Jesus  Christ  was  and  is  the  righteousness 
of  God.  The  Apostolic  Church  called  him 
"  that  Just  One."  (Actsiii,  14;  vii,  52;  xxii, 
14.)  His  first  demand  was  for  righteous- 
ness. *'  Seek  ye  first  the  Kingdom  of  God 
and  His  righteousness."  Micah's  idea  of  re- 
ligion was  not  complete  but  it  called  for  the 
first  and  indispensable  essentials.  "What 
doth  Jehovah  require  of  thee,  but  to  do  justly, 
and  to  love  kindness,  and  to  walk  humbly 
vv^ith  thy  God?  "  (Micah  vi,  8.)  It  is  be- 
cause injustice  has  been  done  and  in  order 
that  injustice  may  not  be  done  with  impunity 
or  done  again  at  all  that  we  are  at  war. 
There  can  be  no  peace  without  justice  on  the 
earth.  And  there  will  be  justice  when  men 
obey  Christ. 

Jesus  Christ  was  and  is  good  will.  One 
of  His  biographies  is  given  in  five  words, 
"  He  went  about  doing  good."  He  did  not 
go  about  seeking  pleasure,  save  as  He  was 
pleased  to  do  good.  He  did  not  seek  power. 
He  had  it  already  and  used  it  only  for  help- 
fulness. He  did  not  seek  wealth,  though  he 
taught  men  industry  and  thrift  and  made 
clearer  than  any  other  teacher  the  responsi- 
bility of  trusteeship.  He  contrasted  as  fun- 
damentally contradictory  the  pagan  ideal  and 


the  Church  and  the  War  95 

His  own.  "  And  He  said  unto  them,  The 
kings  of  the  Gentiles  have  lordship  over 
them;  and  they  that  have  authority  over  them 
are  called  Benefactors.  But  ye  shall  not  be 
so:  but  he  that  is  the  greater  among  you,  let 
him  become  as  the  younger;  and  he  that  is 
chief,  as  he  that  doth  serve."  (Luke  xxii, 
25-27.)  This  is  the  complete  repudiation 
of  the  Nietzsche  philosophy  and  the  Treit- 
schke  politics.  And  it  is  the  judgment  of 
God  upon  all  selfishness  of  class  or  person  in 
every  nation. 

Jesus  Christ  was  and  is  a  principle  of  unity. 
He  drew  men  about  Himself  in  friendship 
while  He  was  here.  His  "  New  Command- 
ment "  was  a  law  of  fellowship.  It  was  not 
a  canon  of  doctrine  or  of  ecclesiastical  gov- 
ernment. It  was  both  the  pass-word  and  the 
power  of  a  new  brotherhood.  "  A  new  com- 
mandment I  give  unto  you,  that  ye  love  one 
another;  even  as  I  have  loved  you,  that  ye 
also  love  one  another.  By  this  shall  all  men 
know  that  ye  are  my  disciples,  if  ye  love  one 
another."  (John  xiil,  34.)  From  points  of 
view  made  too  familiar  to  us  in  the  days  of 
easy  and  barren  optimism  which  have  gone 
past,  Christ's  words  are  merely  sentimental. 
They  do  not  belong  to  the  world  of  practical, 
economic  and  material  interests.  But  they 
are  the  last  words  of  true  social  and  political 


96  The  Christian  Man, 

economy  none  the  less.  And  we  shall  go  on 
misleading  ourselves  by  our  own  fabrications 
until  we  come  to  them  and  accept  their  simple 
and  sufficient  solution  of  our  whole  problem 
of  human  relations. 

If  we  are  to  have  an  organizing  principle 
of  unity  in  the  nation  and  in  the  world  Jesus 
Christ  must  supply  it.  It  was  His  purpose 
and  expectation  to  do  so.  ^'  I,  if  I  be  lifted 
up  from  the  earth,"  He  said,  ^'  will  draw  all 
men  unto  me."  (John  xii,  32.)  No 
Church  can  do  it  until  at  last  some  Church 
unfolds  which  has  Him  alone  for  its  Head 
and  Life.  Paul  dreamed  of  humanity 
made  into  such  a  Church  of  Christ.  "  For  in 
Him,"  says  Paul,  "  were  all  things  created, 
in  the  heavens  and  upon  the  earth,  things 
visible  and  things  invisible,  whether  thrones 
or  dominions  or  principalities  or  powers; 
all  things  have  been  created  through  Him 
and  unto  Him;  and  He  is  before  all  things, 
and  in  Him  all  things  consist.  And  He 
is  the  head  of  the  body,  the  Church :  who 
is  beginning,  the  first  born  from  the  dead; 
that  in  all  things  He  might  have  the  pre- 
eminence. For  it  was  the  good  pleasure  of 
the  Father  that  in  Him  should  all  the  fullness 
dwell,  and  through  Him  to  reconcile  all  things 
unto  Himself,  having  made  peace  through  the 
blood  of   His   cross;   through   Him,    I   say, 


the  Church  and  the  War  97 

whether  things  upon  the  earth,  or  things  in 
the  heavens."  (Col.  i,  16-20.)  "  For  He 
is  our  peace,  who  made  both  one,  and  brake 
down  the  middle  wall  of  partition,  having 
abolished  in  His  flesh  the  enmity,  even  the 
law  of  commandments  contained  in  ordi- 
nances; that  He  might  create  in  Himself  of 
the  two  one  new  man,  so  making  peace;  and 
might  reconcile  them  both  in  one  body  unto 
God  through  the  cross,  having  slain  the  en- 
mity thereby;  and  He  came  and  preached 
peace  to  you  that  were  far  off,  and  peace  to 
them  that  were  nigh :  for  through  Him  we 
both  have  our  access  in  one  Spirit  unto  the 
Father.  So  then  ye  are  no  more  strangers 
and  sojourners,  but  ye  are  fellow-citizens 
with  the  saints,  and  of  the  household  of  God, 
being  built  upon  the  foundation  of  the  apos- 
tles and  prophets,  Christ  Jesus  Himself  being 
the  chief  corner  stone;  in  whom  each  several 
building,  fitly  framed  together,  groweth  into 
a  holy  temple  in  the  Lord;  in  whom  ye  also 
are  builded  together  for  a  habitation  of  God 
In  the  Spirit."      (Eph.  i,  16-22.) 

Humanity  Is  far  enough  away  from  all  this 
now.  And,  alas,  there  Is  no  church  estab- 
lishment on  earth  which  greatly  resembles  it. 
But  the  principle  is  here  and  it  is  more  nearly 
realized  in  the  Christian  Church  even  as 
we  have  it  than  in  any  other  institution  or 


98  The  Christian  Man, 

Idea.  And  the  war  has  brought  sight  of  it 
to  many  men  —  not  enough  to  change  the 
world  greatly  but  still  enough  to  make  sure 
that  it  will  be  changed  some. 

Jesus  Christ  was  and  is  the  embodiment  of 
truth  about  life  and  of  a  spirit  of  life  which 
in  spite  of  all  the  tragedy  of  war  and  even 
through  the  tragedy  of  war  human  hearts 
now  widely  discern  and  feel.  A  godly  old 
man  in  one  of  the  harassed  neutral  countries 
of  Europe  tries  to  sum  up  In  a  letter  what  he 
thinks  he  sees: 

"  Let  me  precise,"  he  says  quaintly,  "  some  points 
regarding  the  influence  of  the  war  on  the  Church. 

"  I.  Especially  in  the  beginning  but  also  after- 
wards many  have  been  unpleasantly  surprised  to  see 
that  life  is  more  earnest  than  they  ever  dreamt  of. 
I  do  not  think  that  fear  has  any  really  good  and 
reliable  moral  and  religious  results,  but  the  distress 
of  these  times  has  turned  many  hearts  to  a  more 
serious  conception  of  life,  to  Christian  thoughts,  to 
feel  their  need  of  the  message  of  the  Gospel.  A 
French  friend  told  me  that  in  the  trenches  modern 
literature  became  tedious  and  nauseous  to  him,  he 
could  only  read  the  Bible  and  the  classics.  I  have 
seen  this  in  fine  modern  souls  not  only  in  belligerent 
countries  but  also  here  in  our  country. 

''  2.  Modern  dogmas  have  failed.  Many  thought 
that  our  civilization  went  by  itself  comfortably  to 
heaven.  Now  they  see  that  it  goes  to  hell,  that  it 
must  take  another  path,  in  order  to  get  saved.     Is 


the  Church  and  the  War  99 

evil  real  ?  The  Christian  struggle  against  evil  must 
be  more  recognized  than  it  was  before  the  war  in 
modern  thought. 

"  3.  But  at  the  same  time  the  message  of  the 
Church  about  atonement,  vicarious  suffering,  re- 
deeming love  and  the  enigma  of  sacrifice  has  become 
evident  as  never  before  to  many  minds  that  despised 
such  Christian  ideas  as  foolish  antiquities  and  that 
see  now  that  those  experiences  touch  the  very  deepest 
realities  of  life. 

"  4.  Notwithstanding  cruel  enmities,  hatred  and 
crimes  I  think  that  human  solidarity  has  never  been 
as  evidently  and  deeply  recognized  as  now.  It  may 
be  that  a  day  will  come  when  humanity  has  forgotten 
all  the  blood  and  the  tears  shed  now  but  will  bless 
the  victory  of  Christian  principles  in  international 
intercourse. 

"  Such  facts  have  turned  many  hearts  to  Christian- 
ity. They  constrain  the  Church  to  contrition  and 
repentance  and  to  loving  service.  But  they  give  her 
also  wonderful  tasks.  Therefore  I  consider  it  as  a 
holy,  but  most  difficult  duty,  to  make  for  a  common 
confession  of  the  Church  of  the  supernational  impor- 
tance of  Christ's  cross." 

Jesus  Christ  is  the  Inspiration  of  what  Is 
true  and  worthy  In  the  conception  of  national- 
ism. The  specialization  of  achievement  and 
of  service  which  is  the  true  function  of  na- 
tionalism draws  sanction  and  power  from  the 
spirit  and  principles  of  Christ.  But  Christ's 
spirit  transcends  all  that  Is  exclusive  and  self- 
ish in  the  nationalistic  idea  and  purifies  it  of 


100  The  Christian  Man, 

false  ambition  and  wrong.  He  lays  the  law 
of  service  and  of  sacrifice  upon  nations  as 
upon  men.  It  is  significant  that  in  this  strain 
of  war  the  nations  have  turned  in  evil  hours 
to  their  old  tribal  gods  but  in  every  hour  of 
sacrifice  to  the  Christ  crucified  or  to  the  white 
figure  of  the  Risen  Lord. 

Jesus  Christ  was  and  is  the  solution  of  the 
race  problem.  Is  there  any  other?  He 
teaches  races  not  to  subject  and  exploit  but 
to  befriend  and  serve  one  another.  Nations 
have  been  slow  to  accept  this  as  a  principle 
of  statecraft.  To  maintain  troops  on  alien 
soil  in  the  necessity  of  war  has  been  within 
the  constitutional  prerogative  of  the  state  but 
to  give  help  in  education  in  days  of  peace  in 
order  to  escape  the  possibiHty  of  war  has 
seemed  a  project  of  unreaHty.  It  would  be 
the  most  obvious  of  realities  when  race  rela- 
tions are  converted  to  Christ.  He  encour- 
ages human  trust  and  confidence.  Faith 
once  established  toward  Him  extends  to 
other  men.  The  apostolic  communities  were 
not  content  to  sing  to  God  "  My  faith  looks 
up  to  Thee."  Their  faith  looked  out  also 
toward  man.  And  multitudes  of  men  for 
the  first  time  believed  in  themselves  because 
some  fellow  Christian  beheved  in  them  for 
Christ's  sake. 

And  Christ  was  not  content  to  deal  in  pre- 


the  Church  and  the  War  loi 

cepts  on  the  problem  of  race.  He  had  a 
great  and  far  reaching  spiritual  purpose  to 
which,  in  his  conception  of  a  biologically  uni- 
fied humanity,  Paul  gave  his  whole  soul  and 
all  the  great  effort  of  his  life.  "  I  have  other 
sheep,"  Jesus  put  it,  "  which  are  not  of  this 
fold.  Them  also  I  must  bring  and  they  shall 
hear  my  voice  and  they  shall  become  one 
flock,  one  shepherd."  (John  x,  i6.)  But 
He  carries  His  conception  further  than  the 
metaphor  of  a  flock.  "  I  am  the  Vine,  ye  are 
the  branches.  Abide  in  Me  and  I  in  you." 
(John  XV,  4,  5.)  And  Paul  states  the  great 
principle  in  still  another  form.  He  sees  man 
idealized  in  a  ''  new  man  that  is  being  re- 
newed unto  knowledge  after  the  image  of 
Him  that  created  Him:  where  there  cannot 
be  Greek  and  Jew,  circumcision  and  uncir- 
cumcision,  barbarian,  Scythian,  bondman, 
freeman;  but  Christ  is  all,  and  in  all."  (Col. 
iii,  10,  II.)  This  may  seem  hopelessly  mys- 
tical, beyond  connection  with  any  plan  of 
practical  politics.  But  we  shall  have  to  come 
to  it  or  go  on  paying  the  price  of  missing  it. 
The  race  problem  has  only  three  solutions 
for  us, —  laissez  faire,  with  the  penalty  in  the 
future  just  what  It  has  always  been,  miscege- 
nation, with  its  impossible  loss  of  so  many 
of  the  gains  of  the  racial  differentiation  and 
social  progress  of  the  past,  and  Christianity. 


I02  The  Christian  Man, 

Jesus  Christ  is  the  one  solution  of  the 
world  problem  because  He  is  the  one  Sav- 
iour of  men.  And  the  root  of  the  whole  mat- 
ter is  that  men  have  to  be  made  over  again, 
and  that  Christ  alone  can  do  it.  The  world 
has  not  believed  this.  It  has  worked  out  all 
sorts  of  political  and  social  arrangements  and 
turned  to  education,  government,  trade,  a 
dozen  different  devices  to  bring  in  the  golden 
age.      It  has  all  been  a  failure. 

The  Christian  Church  has  done  a  little  bet- 
ter. For  a  generation  it  has  professed  to 
believe  in  the  duty  of  service  and  the  law  of 
brotherhood.  But  the  profession  while  sin- 
cere has  lacked  the  one  essential  tap  root. 
"  In  my  judgment,"  said  Admiral  Mahan, 
"  the  Church  of  to-day,  laity  and  clergy,  have 
made  the  capital  mistake  in  generalship  of 
reversing  the  two  great  commandments  of 
the  law;  the  two  fundamental  principles  of 
her  war,  established  by  Christ  Himself. 
Practically,  as  I  observe,  the  laity  hold,  and 
the  clergy  teach,  that  the  first  and  great  com- 
mandment is  'Thou  shalt  love  thy  neighbor 
as  thyself.'  Incidentally  thereto,  it  is  ad- 
mitted, '  Thou  shouldst  love  the  Lord  thy 
God.'  It  is  of  course  too  egregious  an  ab- 
surdity openly  to  call  that  the  second  com- 
mandment. It  Is  simply  quietly  relegated  to 
a  secondary  place. 


the  Church  and  the  War  103 

*'  Is  not  the  judgment  of  the  world  one  of 
Indifferent  contempt  for  a  man  who  is  trying 
to  save  his  own  soul  —  his  miserable  soul,  as 
I  have  sometimes  read?  And  yet  what  is  a 
man's  soul?  It  is  the  one  thing  inexpressibly 
dear  to  God,  for  which,  if  there  had  been 
but  one.  He  was  content  to  give  His  Son,  and 
this  He  has  intrusted  to  the  man  as  his  own 
particular  charge;  I  do  not  say  his  only 
charge,  but  the  one  clearly  and  solely  com- 
mitted to  him  to  make  the  most  of  it.  It  is 
the  talent  which  he  is  to  multiply  by  diligent 
care;  not  that  he  may  delight  in  it  himself, 
but  that  he  may  present  it  to  God  through 
Jesus  Christ.  .  .  .  Because  care  of  one's  own 
soul,  by  internal  effort  and  discipline,  seemed 
selfish,  men  have  rushed  to  the  extreme  of 
finding  in  external  action,  in  organized  benev- 
olence. In  philanthropic  effort,  in  the  love  of 
the  neighbor  —  and  particularly  of  the  neigh- 
bor's body,  for  the  neighbor's  soul  was  nat- 
urally of  not  more  account  than  one's  own  — 
not  merely  the  fruit  of  Christian  life,  but  the 
Christian  life  itself.  That  the  kingdom  of 
God  Is  within  you,  an  individual  matter  pri- 
marily and  In  essence,  and  only  in  conse- 
quence, and  Incidentally  external,  as  all  activ- 
ity Is  but  a  manifestation  of  life,  and  not  life 
Itself — all  this  was  forgotten.  This  I  con- 
ceive to  be  the  state  of  the  Church  now." 


104  The  Christian  Man, 

And  what  the  Church  may  have  forgot,  the 
world  was  not  likely  to  remember. 

Will  the  Church  remember  now  and  lift 
the  light  of  its  witness  before  the  nations? 
And  will  the  nations  accept  or  reject  its  wit- 
ness? Will  it  be  again  as  it  was  once  be- 
fore or  different? 

Shall  it  be  now  as  then,  '^  O  Jerusalem,  Je- 
rusalem, how  often  would  I  have  gathered 
thy  children  together,  even  as  a  hen  gathereth 
her  chickens  under  her  wings  and  ye  would 
not !  Behold  your  house  is  left  unto  you 
desolate.  For  I  say  unto  you,  you  shall  not 
see  Me  henceforth,  till  ye  shall  say,  Blessed 
is  Hje  that  cometh  in  the  name  of  the  Lord.'' 
(Matt,  xxiii,  37-39.) 

Or  shall  it  be  that  august  word,  "  The  voice 
of  a  great  multitude,  and  as  the  voice  of  many 
waters,  and  as  the  voice  of  mighty  thunders, 
saying,  Hallelujah:  for  the  Lord  our  God, 
the  Almighty,  reignest.  Let  us  rejoice  and 
be  exceeding  glad,  and  let  us  give  the  glory 
unto  Him :  for  the  marriage  of  the  Lamb  is 
come,  and  his  wife  hath  made  herself  ready. 
And  it  was  given  unto  her  that  she  should 
array  herself  in  fine  linen,  bright  and  pure: 
for  the  fine  linen  is  the  righteous  acts  of  the 
saints.  And  he  salth  unto  me.  Write, 
Blessed  are  they  that  are  bidden  to  the  mar- 


the  Church  and  the  War  105 

riage  supper  of  the  Lamb."      (Rev.  xix,  6- 

"This  Is  mere  rhapsody,"  says  Practical 
Politics. 

"  This  Is  the  ultimate  practical  politics," 
says  History. 


THE    END 


PRINTED   IN   THE   UNITED    STATES   OF   AMERICA 


The  Church  and  the  Man 

By  DONALD  HANKEY 
Author  of  "A  Student  in  Arms" 

Cloth,  i2mo,  60  cents 

"  Donald  Hankey,  in  his  The  Church  and  the  Man,  strength- 
ens the  hold  on  our  affections  won  through  his  earlier  book, 
A  Student  in  Arms.  In  this  new  volume  are  eight  brief  papers 
all  filled  with  the  wise  sincerity  of  a  religious  conviction  that 
cares  little  for  creed  and  miracle,  that  finds  the  whole  vade 
ntecum  of  life  in  the  simple  facts  of  Christ's  active  work  among 
men.  And  a  belief  of  that  kind  is  the  only  one  that  fits  all 
men  through  its  divine  perfection  of  service.  It  was  his  hope, 
as  it  is  to-day  that  of  thousands  of  men.  that  out  of  this  war 
will  emerge  a  renaissance  of  faith  in  the  possibility  of  uplifting, 
bettering  masses  through  the  coming  down  to  all  levels  and  shar- 
ing burdens." — Boston  Transcript. 

"  I  think  every  Y.  M.  C.  A.  worker  and  Chaplain  and  every 
one  connected  with  men's  religious  work  should  make  use  of  this 
volume.  It  expresses  and  answers  some  of  the  chief  problems 
men  have  to  face,  and  I  earnestly  commend  it  to  all  intelligent 
laymen  and  ministers  anxious  for  the  welfare  of  our  boys.  Such 
a  volume  as  this  shows  us  how  our  young  men  are  pointing  us 
to  God." —  S.  Parkes  Cadman. 

The  object  of  the  little  book  is,  as  the  author  says  in  his 
opening  sentences,  "  to  try  to  help  find  out  how  we  can  make  the 
church  a  better,  a  more  efficient,  a  more  vital,  a  more  healthy 
body."  An  Average  Man's  Beliefs,  The  Troubles  of  An  Aver- 
age Layman,  The  Gospel  and  The  Church,  Methods  and 
Weapons,  Revelations  and  Common  Sense,  The  Church  and  Hu- 
man Relations  and  Missions  are  taken  up  in  siiccessive  chanters. 
There  is  also  an  mtroduction  by  C.  H.  S.  Mathews,  in  which  Mr. 
Hankey's  life  is  briefly  reviewed. 


THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

Publishers      64-66  Fifth  Avenue      New  York 


The  New  Horizon  of  Church 
and  State 

By  WILLIAM  HERBERT  PERRY  FAUNCE 

President  of  Brown  University,  and  Author  of 

"  The  Educational  Ideal  in  the  Ministry  " 

Cloth,  i2mo 

President  Faunce  takes  up  in  his  book  four  interesting  topics: 
first,  The  Return  of  America  to  the  Founders;  second.  The  Re- 
turn of  Christianity  to  Christ;  third,  The  Function  of  the  Chris- 
tian Patriot;  and  finally,  Obstacles  to  the  International  Mind. 
The  author's  wide  scholarship,  keenly  analytical  mind  and  his 
close  relationship  with  movements  of  the  day,  have  combined  to 
make  a  thoroughly  significant  volume. 


The  Apostles'  Creed  Today 

By  EDWARD  S.  DROWN 

Cloth,  i2mo,  $1.00 

"  An  able  though  popular  discussion  of  the  various  problems 
that  arise  in  connection  with  the  continued  use  of  the  Apostles' 
Creed  in  the  public  services  of  various  churches  at  the  present 
day." —  W.  J.  McGlothlin  in  The  Review  and  Expositor. 

"  Dr,  Drown  shows  how  the  different  articles  of  the  Creed 
embody  universal  truths.  The  purpose  of  the  creed  is  to  set 
forth  Christ,  and  its  acceptance  becomes  primarily  an  expression 
of  loyalty  to  Him.  That  makes  the  acceptance  not  an  irksome 
fetter  but  a  delightful  bond  of  fellowship,  and  fellowship  is  the 
deep  human  need  that  called  the  church  itself  into  existence." — 
Cleveland  Leader. 


THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

Publishers     64-66  Fifth  Avenue     New  York 


Patriotism  and  Religion 

By  SHAILER  MATHEWS 

Professor  of  Historical  and  Comparative  Theology  and 

Dean  of  the  Divinity  School,  University  of  Chicago 

Cloth,  i2mo 

The  close  relationship  between  religion  and  patriotism 
is  Dr.  Mathews'  theme  in  this  volume.  His  purpose, 
essentially,  is  to  indicate  just  what  a  religion  for  war- 
time really  is.  There  are  few  whose  interests  and 
training  tit  them  to  write  on  such  a  subject  as  this  so 
splendidly  as  does  Dr.  Mathews,  and  his  book  Is  one 
which  will  meet  with  the  commendation  of  all  thought- 
ful students  of  the  hour. 

The  Religious  Education  of  An 
American  Citizen 

By  FRANCIS  GREENWOOD  PEABODY 

Cloth,  1 2 mo,  $1.25 

"  Devoting  the  first  half  of  the  book  to  the  child  in 
the  home,  the  boy,  the  student,  a  survey  of  universities 
in  their  social  conscience,  and  the  training  for  citizen- 
ship and  American  character,  Dr.  Pcabody  passes  into 
excursions  on  discipline,  power,  perspective,  the  expan- 
sion of  religion,  the  conversion  of  militarism  and  the 
place  of  Jesus  Christ  in  a  religious  experience.  There 
are  few  minds  which  can  equal  Professor  Peabody's  in 
kindling  working  enthusiasm  and  virilizing  religious 
thought."—  Christian  Register. 


THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

Publishers     64-66  Fifth  Avenue     New  York 


Religion  in  ,a 
World  at  War 

By  GEORGE  HODGES 

Dean  of  the  Episcopal  Theological  School,  Cambridge, 
Massachusetts 

Cloth,  i2mo,  $1.00 

Genuine  comfort  and  inspiration  for  the  sincere  be- 
liever are  contained  in  this  new  work  by  Dean  Hodges. 
Its  central  thought  is  summed  up  in  the  following  pass- 
age: 

"  The  idea  that  faith  has  entered  now  into  an  un- 
precedented peril,  and  that  belief  in  the  power  and  good- 
ness of  God  must  perish  from  the  creeds  of  men,  can 
be  held  only  by  those  who  are  unacquainted  with  his- 
tory." 

The  scope  of  the  book,  rising  from  the  consideration 
of  the  world's  bitter  ordeal  to  a  sublime  conception  of 
the  Christian  rehgion  as  the  living  manifestation  of 
righteousness,  is  suggested  by  the  chapter  headings: 
In  the  Storm  of  War.  Easter  in  a  World  at  War. 
Memorial  Day  in  a  World  at  War.  All  Saints'  Day  in 
a  World  at  War.  Christmas  in  a  World  at  War.  God 
and  the  World's  Pain.  Pain  and  the  World's  Progress. 
The  Everlasting  Vitality  of  the  Christian  Religion. 


THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

Publishers      64-66  Fifth  Avenue      New  York 


Date  Due 


N  16'3fj 


